Rex Stout - Where There's a Will

“I didn’t want to come here. My sister and brother-in-law insisted on it. Which was it, funk or treachery?”

“Now, Miss Hawthorne—” Stauffer approached remonstrating, “That won’t help the situation—”

“April’s arrested,” June blurted. “They’ve arrested her!”

I was trying to help out by pushing chairs behind knees here and there. They certainly were a woebegone outfit.

“She’s not arrested,” Dunn said as he sank into a chair without looking at it. Still a lawyer, in misfortune up to his chin. “She was asked to go to the district attorney’s office and she went. But the way it stands now—”

“I tell you, John,” May snapped at him, “before we tell this man anything, we should demand a satisfactory explanation—”

“Nonsense,” Stauffer sputtered irritably. “Damn it all, you talk as if we could choose—”

“Please, all of you!” Wolfe pushed air with his palm. “Stop jabbering. Your minds aren’t working.” He looked at May. “Apparently, Miss Hawthorne, you are resentful because when we found Miss Karn’s dead body I came home to think it over instead of sitting there all night starving and twiddling my thumbs. I thought you had more sense. To answer your question, it was neither funk nor treachery; it was wit. Anyhow, I’m not answerable to you. You, with others, engaged me to negotiate with Miss Karn, but Miss Karn is dead. Mr. Dunn engaged me to investigate the murder of Noel Hawthorne.” He looked at Dunn. “Am I still so engaged?”

“Yes. Of course.” Dunn didn’t sound very enthusiastic. “But I don’t know what you can do — Prescott’s down there with April—”

“Let’s clear the air a little,” Wolfe suggested. “April is in no danger whatever, except of being annoyed.”

They all stared at him. May demanded, “How do you know that?”

“I know more than that,” Wolfe assured her. “But that’s what I give you now. Accept it; it’s good — Next, Mr. Dunn, I offer you a suggestion. Yesterday Mr. Goodwin found Miss Karn seated in the living room, talking with April Hawthorne who was disguised with a veil to pass as Mrs. Noel Hawthorne.”

Dunn nodded. “That was one thing—”

“One thing you came here now to see me about. Of course. But my suggestion: Mr. Goodwin, on an impulse, parted the draperies that conceal the bar, and saw Mr. Stauffer standing there. Last evening Stauffer offered Goodwin a thousand dollars not to tell the police about it. Goodwin refused the bribe, but he didn’t tell the police, and I didn’t tell Inspector Cramer when he called on me this morning. But we might strike a bargain with Stauffer. Since he was Hawthorne’s deputy in the foreign department of Daniel Cullen and Company, he must know the truth about that leakage on the Argentine loan. If it happened as you suspected yesterday, when Mrs. Hawthorne was found—”

“You’re way behind,” Stauffer interrupted gruffly.

Wolfe’s brow lifted. “Behind?”

“Yes. You’re going to suggest that Dunn forces me to tell the truth about the loan business by threatening to inform the police that I was hiding behind that curtain when Naomi Karn was there. Aren’t you?”

“I thought we might try that.”

“Well, you’re late. As long as Hawthorne was alive it was impossible for me to tell Dunn about it, I simply couldn’t, but I told him this morning, and we confronted Mrs. Hawthorne with it and made her sign a statement. That was what made her vindictive enough to go to the police with a bunch of lies—”

“We don’t know that she lied,” May objected. “Even if she stuck to the truth, it’s enough to challenge Wolfe’s statement that April’s in no danger—”

“Let’s clean up as we go along,” Wolfe put in. “Then you’re clear on the affair of the loan, Mr. Dunn?”

“I’m clear of perfidy,” Dunn said gloomily, “but I let that damned woman make a fool of me. And anyway, with all this — it’s all over—”

“Not quite,” Wolfe declared. “It won’t be all over until I’m through with it. With luck even, you should be able to sleep tonight, or tomorrow at the latest. But you can help me remove a few obstructions — excuse me—”

The phone was ringing. I got my receiver at my ear, but he must have been on edge, for he reached for his extension without waiting for me. I said, “Office of Nero Wolfe—”

“Saul Panzer, Archie. Three-eighteen. I’m reporting from—”

Wolfe’s voice cut him off: “Hold the wire.” Wolfe dropped his instrument on its cradle, arose from his chair, said curtly, “No record, Archie,” and made for the door. Fritz, who had been hovering, left the room with him. I plugged in the kitchen extension, kept the receiver to my ear until I heard Wolfe’s voice and Saul’s answering him, and hung up.

May Hawthorne said incisively, “He’s a mountebank. Talk of our sleeping tonight! I tell you, someone must do something! Prescott down there with April! He may be a good lawyer, but he’s not up to this. And Andy’s a child. And this windbag of a Wolfe — bah! We’re sunk, damn it!”

Dunn muttered at her, without conviction, “He says April is in no danger—”

“Bluff!” May snorted. “My God, if the best we can do in the face of calamity is sit here and listen—”

“Be quiet, May,” June put in with quiet authority. “Quit ragging. You know very well it’s Nero Wolfe or nothing. What has anyone else been able to offer except well-meaning condolence? If we’re sunk, we’re sunk. You stop digging at John. He was on the verge of a collapse before this happened.” Her eyes left her sister, to look at her daughter, and her voice changed. “Sara dear. I don’t like to ask you what you came here for, but I’d like to know. Mr. Wolfe sent for you. Didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Sara was on a chair next to her father. “He wanted to ask me something. About my camera being stolen. You remember I spoke about it yesterday, and last evening I told Mr. Goodwin. Of course that was all I could tell Mr. Wolfe, that it was gone and I had no idea who took it.”

So they discussed the camera. There had been two murders, an estate of millions had apparently gone up the flue as far as they were concerned, Dunn was tumbling headlong off of a national eminence, their April was being questioned by the police as a suspect, and they discussed the camera. That would have been all right if they had had any idea of its relation to the cataclysm, but as far as I could tell nobody had. They were still discussing it when Wolfe came back in.

He got into his chair and looked around at the faces. “Now,” he said brusquely, “let’s tidy up a little. First, Mrs. Hawthorne’s vindictiveness after you cornered her on that loan business. I suppose one of the things she told the police was about the cornflower Andy found hanging on a briar, and April’s wearing a bunch of cornflowers Tuesday afternoon which had been presented to her by Mr. Stauffer.”

There were stares and two or three exclamations. Stauffer started, “How the devil—”

Wolfe wiggled a finger. “Let me go on. I’m not trying to stagger you with effects. I got that story firsthand, from Mrs. Hawthorne herself yesterday. Did she give it to the police?”

“Yes, she did,” June replied.

“Describing, of course, the scene she saw through a window Tuesday evening, when Andy exhibited the cornflower to you and your husband and told where he had found it. I suppose the police questioned you about that?”

“Yes.”

“Did you admit it?”

“Of course not. It wasn’t true. We denied it.”

“All three of you?”

“Yes.”

Wolfe grunted. “That’s bad. You’re going to regret that.”

“Why should we regret it, since we merely—”