Rex Stout: Not Quite Dead Enough

“How do I know? I’ve got a job to do.”

“As soon as it’s finished?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I turned to Cramer. “Tell Stebbins to phone Fritz to dust and air the office and to get things in and have dinner at eight, as before — let’s see — pan-broiled young turkey and what goes with it. And beer. Three cases of beer.”

Purley uttered a grunt of indignation, but Cramer made it an order by nodding at him, and he left the room.

“Also,” I told Cramer cheerfully, “before I pull the zipper I want a passport from you. I’ve got—”

“Save it,” he rasped. “It’s your turn now. If I like it well enough—”

“Nothing doing.” I shook my head firmly. “You’re not going to like it at all. Short of murder there’s practically nothing you couldn’t wrap around me if you felt like it. So I’ve got terms for you too. You can have the satisfaction of salting me away for ten years — five anyhow. Or you can have the facts. But you’re not going to get both satisfaction and facts. Now say you lock me up and Mr. Wolfe totters home without me. How long do you think it would take you to find out how a lock of my hair got under that scarf? And so forth. If you want the facts, give me a passport. In advance. And get set to restrain yourself, because I freely admit that in my enthusiasm I—”

“In your what?”

“Enthusiasm. Zeal.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, sir. I admit that I acted somewhat arbitrarily and when I tell you about it you will be inclined to take offense. In fact—”

“Don’t talk so damn much. What do you want?”

“Fresh air. Short of murder, I’m clear. Not a signed statement, just verbal will do.”

“Go to hell.”

“Suit yourself.” I shrugged. “You can’t possibly tag me for murder. I know the facts and you don’t. It would take you three thousand years to find out about that lock of hair, let alone—”

“Shut up!”

I did so. Cramer glowered at me, and I gazed at him composedly but inflexibly. Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes closed.

“Okay,” he said. “Short of murder you’re clear. Shoot.”

I stood up. “May I use your phone, please?”

Cramer shoved the phone across and I put in a person-to-person call to Lily Rowan at the Worthington at Greenwich. Evidently she wasn’t out leading Roy a chase, for I got her right away. She was inclined to be cantankerous, but I told her all conversation would have to be postponed until I saw her, which would be that very afternoon if she would take the next train to New York and go straight from the station to Wolfe’s office. Then I asked her to return me to the hotel switchboard and when I got it asked to speak to Roy Douglas. In a couple of minutes I had him. His voice sounded as if he had the jitters, and he began sputtering about the papers saying he had run away and was being searched for, but I calmed him clown and told him the same thing I had told Lily, to return to New York and go to Wolfe’s office. When I put the receiver back on the cradle Cramer was regarding me with a mean eye. He reached for the phone and got somebody and growled into it:

“Send four men to Nero Wolfe’s place on 35th Street. Lily Rowan and Roy Douglas will be showing up there in a couple of hours, maybe sooner. Let ’em go in Wolfe’s house if that’s what they do, and keep it covered. If they do anything else, follow them.” He hung up and turned to me. “So you had ’em on ice, did you? Both of ’em, huh?” He pointed the cigar at me. “You’re wrong about one thing, bud. You won’t be seeing any Lily Rowan at Wolfe’s office this afternoon, because you’re not going to be there. Now let’s hear you.”

Wolfe muttered, “Talk, Archie.”

I talked. One thing I know how to do is to report current events which I have witnessed, and they both knew it, so there were no interruptions. It didn’t present any great difficulties, since all I had to do was open the bag and dump it, as I would have done if I had been alone with Wolfe. I saw no reason to try to hide any cards from Cramer. I gave them the crop, with only one exception. My modesty wouldn’t permit me to suggest that reading aloud to me was an essential ingredient in Lily Rowan’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, so I skipped any hint of that. I merely said we met by accident on the plane to New York, and she told me about Ann Amory being in trouble, and I decided to try to use that in my effort to bring Nero Wolfe back to his senses. Of course I had to tell about the object of my trip to New York, since otherwise there would have been no way to explain my planting the note and the hair and my fingerprints, and various other details, and anyhow Wolfe already knew it, as he had shown when he asked me what were my terms.

“So,” I ended, looking straight at Wolfe, “here I am. I have disgraced the uniform. A million people are at this moment reading the headline, Nero Wolfe’s Former Assistant Locked Up , and snickering. Even if Cramer believes my story, he still has a lock of my hair. If he doesn’t believe it, he may get me electrocuted. And it’s all on account of you! If you—”

Cramer was regarding me sourly, mangling his third cigar, and massaging the back of his neck. “I had a headache,” he said cutting me off, “and now it’s worse. My son’s in Australia with the Air Corps. He’s a bombardier.”

“I was aware of it,” I said politely. “Have you heard from him recently?”

“Go to hell. As you know damn well, Goodwin, I’ve been wanting to teach you a lesson for years. Here’s my chance. Five years would be about right. But short of murder you’re clear. I said so, and what I say sticks. If it wasn’t for that I’d hang it on you, don’t think I wouldn’t. Anyway you’re wearing the same uniform my son’s wearing, and I have more respect for it than you seem to have. And I guess you’ll be court-martialed. There was a Colonel Ryder here to see you about an hour ago and I wouldn’t let him.”

“That’ll be all right,” I said reassuringly. “As soon as Mr. Wolfe finds the murderer everything will be rosy.”

“You don’t say. Wolfe’s going to find the murderer, is he? That’s damn kind of him.”

“Archie.” Wolfe had found his tongue. “You admit that the sole purpose of this grotesque performance was to bring pressure on me? To coerce me?”

“To stimulate you, yes, sir.”

Wolfe nodded grimly. “We’ll discuss it at the proper time. I prefer not to do so in the presence of others. First there is this murder. How much of what you told Mr. Cramer was true?”

“All of it.”

“You’re talking to me now.”

“I know I am.”

“How much did you withhold?”

“Nothing. That was the works.”

“I don’t believe it. You hesitated twice.”

I shook my head, grinning at him. “You’re a little rusty, that’s all. You’re out of practice. But there is one thing I didn’t say. I did want you to get back to work because the Army needs you, but when I saw Ann Amory there on the floor there was another reason. She was a good kid. She was all right. I danced with her and I liked her. If you had seen her as she was Monday evening, and then as she was there on the floor — anyway, I saw her. So I was in favor of making sure that the guy who did it wouldn’t live any longer than was necessary, and that was another reason for getting you back to work. Because it may have been partly my fault. I went down there and stirred it up. Otherwise it might not have happened.”

“Nonsense,” Wolfe said testily. “A murderer doesn’t sprout overnight like a mushroom. What about it, Mr. Cramer? What have you got? Do you need anything?”