Rex Stout - Where There's a Will

“Who are you?” he demanded, in a voice that made me afraid he would strip his gears. “I want Glenn Prescott.”

“Yes, sir,” I said ingratiatingly. “I know you do. If you will come this way, please.”

“I’m not coming that way or any other way.” He planted himself. His fists were still bulging in his pockets. “He can come here. You can go and tell him—”

“Yes, sir, I will. But this is a sort of a public room. People come in here all the time. These chairs are no good to sit on, either. I’ll be glad to bring Mr. Prescott wherever you say, but I do honestly think the library would be much better.” I backed toward the doorway. “Come and see for yourself. If you don’t like it you can return here.”

“I’ll like it all right, but he won’t.” He stayed planted. Then abruptly he rumbled, “You don’t need to show me the library, I know where it is,” and moved so fast he nearly toppled me over as he went by.

I was at his heels going up the stairs, and stayed there, thinking to steer him in case he was too optimistic about knowing where the library was, but he went straight to the door and flung it open. I followed him in, closed the door, and announced to Wolfe:

“Mr. Eugene Davis.”

Davis glared around. “Where’s Prescott?” He glared at Wolfe. “Who are you?” He glared at me. “What kind of a run-around is this? You’re not Turner! I sent Turner to get Prescott!”

“That’s all right,” I said soothingly, “we’ll get him. I’m not a butler, I’m a detective. Detectives are better than butlers for getting people. This is Mr. Nero Wolfe.”

“Who the hell—”

He stopped abruptly. You might have thought I had reached inside his skull and flipped a switch. A sort of spasm went over his face, and his shoulders stiffened and then relaxed again, and when he focused his eyes on Wolfe they were no longer merely bleary and foolishly truculent. They were alert and intelligent and on guard.

“Oh,” he said. His tone had changed even more than his eyes. “You’re Nero Wolfe.”

Wolfe nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re here helping to prove Hawthorne was murdered. Or that he wasn’t. I see.” He turned to survey me. “So Turner announced me to you instead of to Prescott. And told you I was drunk, I suppose. It’s Prescott I came here to see. I’ll find him.”

He started off, but Wolfe snapped, “One minute, Mr. Dawson!”

Halfway to the door, he halted, stood there for four seconds with his back to us, and then slowly turned around. “My name’s Davis,” he said with careful precision. “Eugene Davis.”

“Not on 11th Street. There it’s Earl Dawson. And how did you know Hawthorne was murdered? Did Mr. Prescott tell you? Or did you learn it from Miss Karn when you were dining with her last evening?”

He had things under control all right. Knowing the feeling he must have been experiencing in his stomach under the circumstances, I admired him. All he did was stand and gaze at Wolfe and chew his lower lip. Finally he crossed to a chair, steadily and without haste, sat down, and asked:

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk with you, Mr. Davis.”

“What about?”

“This mess. This murder. This will business.”

“I know nothing about either one. How did you know I am Earl Dawson on 11th Street?”

“You drank to excess last night. A man who works for me took you home and removed your trousers. Another man who works for me — Mr. Goodwin here, Mr. Archie Goodwin — went there this morning and identified you from articles in your pockets. As for your dining with Miss Karn, she was being followed.”

“Of course. I should have thought of that. I was stupid. It still surprises me to realize I was stupid, because originally I wasn’t meant to be. About my being Dawson, I would like to know who has been informed. The police?”

“No. No one. Mr. and Mrs. Dunn know that you were found somewhere in a drunken stupor, but not where, and not that you were incognito.”

“Is that straight?”

“Yes, sir. I would have no compunction about lying to you, but that’s straight.”

“I’ll take it that way.” I could see that the fingernails of his right hand were digging into his palm. He saw that I saw it, and stuck the hand into his coat pocket. He went on, “In view of the way things are, I suppose it’s an affectation for me to try to keep the Dawson thing — that place — secret, but as I say, I can’t be counted on any more not to act stupidly. I don’t want that known, Mr. Wolfe. I’ll talk about anything you want me to, within reason.”

Wolfe was frowning. “Not with any pledge of secrecy from me, sir. Neither tacit nor explicit. But I expose no man’s privy affairs unnecessarily.”

“If that’s all I can get, I’ll take that. What do you want to ask me?”

“Several things. First, where were you Tuesday afternoon from 4 to 6?”

There was no immediate reply. I could see there was movement inside the pocket where his fist was. To make things easier I horned in: “Which do you want, Scotch or rye?”

He looked at me and said sarcastically, “All the comforts of hell. If you mean it, Scotch. Don’t spoon it out, you know.”

I told him I wouldn’t and trotted out and downstairs. In the ambush behind the draperies in the living room, on the shelves back of the bar, there were four brands to choose from. I long-armed cross the bar and got one, with a glass, poured out a generous triple, and returned to the library with it. It simply wasn’t possible for Davis to keep his fingers from shaking as he took it. He only had to swallow twice. After a moment he put the glass down on the desk, and his fingers were steady.

He met Wolfe’s eyes. “Tuesday afternoon,” he said. “I was with Miss Karn from 3 o’clock until around 7.”

“Where?”

“Driving. We went up to Connecticut and back. If the police have questioned her, that isn’t what she told them, but I’m not telling the police, I’m telling you. If they question me, I’ll tell them where I was, but I’ll say I was alone.”

“Did you stop to eat or drink?”

“No. We have no corroboration.”

“That’s too bad. Will you have some beer?”

Davis shuddered. “No!”

“I’m thirsty.” Wolfe poured and put the bottle down. “You see, Mr. Davis, you may get into trouble. I doubt if the police have smelled you yet, but they certainly will if they keep on. They’ll learn that you formed an attachment for Miss Karn a long while ago, and that when—”

“That’s an old story. Back in 1935. How did you know about it?”

“I have men working for me. But the attachment still exists, doesn’t it?”

“Certainly not.”

“You were with Miss Karn Tuesday. You were with her last evening.”

“We are friends. I’m a lawyer. She was consulting me.”

Wolfe shook his head. “Please don’t waste time like that. There are two pictures of her in your wallet, and Mr. Dawson has eight more scattered around his apartment.”

Davis flushed in sudden anger, and his jaw stiffened. He shot me a glance that he should have been ashamed of, considering the fact that I had just saved his life with a triple Scotch.

“By God,” he declared, “if I wasn’t tied hand and foot—”

“You’d assault Mr. Goodwin. I know. I know too, I think, how reluctant you are to admit your attachment for Miss Karn as an item in a discussion like this. It is a vital necessity for you right now to keep your head clear and working efficiently, and that’s difficult when a subject arises which causes your heart to pump an excess of blood. I’ll go as easy as I can. But here’s the material we have to deal with: You were passionately attached to Miss Karn. Noel Hawthorne saw her and liked her, and wanted her, and took her. Naturally you resented that. How much I don’t know, but surely you resented it. However, either you continued some sort of association with her, or after a time you resumed association. Which?”