Rex Stout - Where There's a Will

“I’ll try. You might save time by telling me what you want to see him about.”

“I don’t know.” Her brow wrinkled. “Maybe I should. It’s something I’d like him to know—”

She turned at a noise. The butler was coming through the doorway.

“Yes, Turner?”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Dunn. Your father is expecting Mr. Goodwin upstairs.”

“They can wait a minute,” I said, “if you want—”

She shook her head. “No, it would be — tell him what I said. Will you?”

I said I would, and followed the butler. From the entrance hall he mounted a wide curving stairway, and in the upper corridor passed one door on the right and opened the second one. I went in. A glance showed me that this room was closer to my idea of what to do to keep in out of the rain if you have money. There were shelves with books on three sides, pictures of horses and dogs, a big roomy flat-top desk, plenty of comfortable chairs, and a radio. No one was at the desk. Nero Wolfe was holding down a brown leather chair with his back to a window. Mrs. John Charles Dunn was on the edge of another one. Standing between them was a tall stoop-shouldered guy in shirt sleeves, with harassed deep-set eyes and a wavy mane of hair turning gray. I would have recognized him immediately from pictures I had seen, and of course he was noted for shedding his coat and vest whenever circumstances permitted.

Wolfe grunted a greeting. June murmured at me and introduced me to her husband. Wolfe said:

“Sit down, Archie. I have explained your function to Mr. and Mrs. Dunn. Did Fred get into trouble again?”

“No, sir, I wouldn’t say trouble. Following the instructions I gave him, he walked around and sat in a bar having refreshments until five o’clock. Then one of the bar’s customers needed to be conveyed home and Fred obliged. I joined him in the customer’s apartment at the address I told Fritz to give you, arriving at nine o’clock. The customer was on the bed in a coma sequential to acute inebriation. After looking around to make sure that everything was all right, I departed, phoned the house, and received your message from Fritz. Fred has gone home to sleep.”

“The customer’s identity?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well?”

I shrugged. If the lid was off for the cabinet member and wife, okay. “Eugene Davis, of the law firm of Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis.”

“Ah.”

Mrs. Dunn asked in a tone of surprise, “Gene Davis?”

“Do you know him, madam?” inquired Wolfe.

“Not well. I haven’t seen him for a long time.” She turned to her husband. “You remember him, John. Eugene Davis, Glenn’s partner. I don’t think either of us has seen him since we went to Washington.”

Dunn nodded uncertainly. “I believe I do. A fellow with a narrow nose and too much blood in his lips. But he has no connection with this — has he? Eugene Davis?”

“I don’t know,” Wolfe said. “Anyway, he is at present in a drunken stupor, so he’ll keep. You were saying, sir?...”

“Yes.” Dunn scowled at me and then transferred it to Wolfe. “I don’t like this man’s being here, but what I like is no longer of much significance.” He sounded bitter.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Wolfe remonstrated. “I’ve explained about Mr. Goodwin. Without him I’m an ear without a tympanum. Go ahead. You made a fine dramatic statement, which pleased me very much because I’m an incurable romantic. You said you are going to put your fate in my hands.”

“There was nothing dramatic about it. It was merely a statement of fact.”

“I like facts too.”

“I don’t,” Dunn muttered. “Not these facts.” He turned and looked at his wife, then abruptly went over to her and bent down to kiss her on the lips. “June dear,” he said. “I’ve hardly even said hello to you. June dear.” She pulled him back down and had him kiss her again and muttered at him. Wolfe told me:

“Mr. Dunn just arrived from Washington. He phoned me from the airport.”

Dunn straightened up and came back to Wolfe. “You’ve heard the report that is being spread about Noel Hawthorne and me.”

Wolfe nodded. “Something, yes, sir. The editor of the Gazette dines with me once a month. That the decision to make the loan to Argentina was arrived at in the State Department. That shortly after the loan was announced, it was learned that valuable industrial concessions in Argentina had already been secured by companies controlled by Daniel Cullen and Company. That Noel Hawthorne had, through you, his brother-in-law, received prior secret information of the loan and its terms. That you, the secretary of state, are as good as convicted of skulduggery.”

“Do you believe it?”

“I know nothing whatever about it.”

“It’s a damned lie. If you believe it, you are disqualified for what I want you to do.”

“I have no basis for belief or disbelief. I don’t try to abolish reality by shutting my eyes, nor do I gobble garbage. As a citizen, I like your methods and approve your policies. I am a professional detective, and if I take a job I work at it. What do you want me to do?”

“You did a brilliant piece of work on the Wetzler case.”

“Thank you, sir. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to find out who murdered Noel Hawthorne.”

“Indeed.” Wolfe heaved a sigh. I looked across at June and saw that her fingers were twisted tight in her lap as she gazed across at her husband. Dunn, standing in front of Wolfe, scowled down at him.

“My career is ruined anyhow,” he declared. “My wife’s too, for it has been as much hers as mine. I’ll probably have to resign within a month. I’ll clear it up some day, the question of how the Cullen office got that advance information. My brother-in-law claimed he didn’t know. I’ll do that before I die, in spite of the intrigue and obscurities and obstacles. But the first thing to clear up is this murder.” Dunn clenched his fists. “By God, I won’t leave Washington with this on my shoulders too.”

Wolfe grunted. “Miss May Hawthorne seems to think that your political opponents are deliberately using Hawthorne’s death as a lever to pry you out. Do you?”

“I don’t know. I make no such charge. But I do know that if the murder is not solved I’ll never crawl out of the mire, either before my death or after, and I don’t think they’ll solve it. I don’t believe they will.” Dunn’s fists closed again. “I suppose this Argentina thing has worn my nerves thin and they’re ready to snap, but I don’t trust anybody. Not anybody. People who sit at the same table with me at a cabinet meeting will help tear my scalp off. Am I going to trust my life — more than my life — to a Rockland County district attorney or a slick rabble-rouser like Bill Skinner? I am not! There’s not a soul in Washington that I can trust who is in a position to help me in a thing like this. And people don’t like to help a man who is supposed to be going down for the third time, not even when — especially when — he occupies a position like mine. I need you, Mr. Wolfe. I want you to find out who killed Hawthorne.”

“Well.” Wolfe stirred in his chair. “I have already accepted a commission—”

“I know you have. But first another thing. My salary is $15,000 a year and I have a hard time living on it. If I resign and resume private practice—”

Wolfe waved it away. “If you can trust me with your fate I can trust you for a fee. But I can’t undertake to look two ways at once. Your wife and her sisters and Mrs. Hawthorne have engaged me in the matter of the will. They are my clients. If I take on your job too I run the risk of finding myself confronted by the painful necessity...”