Рекс Стаут - Murder Is Corny

Cramer grunted. “Yeah. He can. So you deliberately warned a murderer. Telling him to have answers ready. Nuts. You expected him to lam.”

“No. I had no specific expectation. It would have been idle to speculate, but if I had, I doubt if I would have expected him to scoot. He couldn’t take his farm along, and he would be leaving his daughter in mortal jeopardy. I didn’t consciously speculate, but my subconscious must have, for suddenly, when I was busy at the potting bench, it struck me. Saul Panzer’s description of McLeod’s stony face as he read the memorandum; the stubborn ego of a self-righteous man; dynamite for stumps and rocks; corn; a closed carton. Most improbable. I resumed the potting. But conceivable. I dropped the trowel and went to the elevator, and within thirty seconds after I emerged in the hall the carton came.”

“Luck,” Cramer said. “Your goddam incredible luck. If it had made mincemeat of Goodwin you might have been willing to admit for once — Okay, it didn’t.” He got up. “Stick around, Goodwin. They’ll want you at the DA’s office, probably in the morning.” To Wolfe: “What if that phone call had said the carton held corn, just corn? You think you could have talked me off, don’t you?”

“I could have tried.”

“By God. Talk about stubborn egos.” Cramer shook his head. “That break you got on the carton. You know, any normal man, if he got a break like that, coming down just in the nick of time, what any normal man would do, he would go down on his knees and thank God. Do you know what you’ll do? You’ll thank you. I admit it would be a job for you to get down on your knees, but—”

The phone rang. I swiveled and got it, and a voice I recognized asked for Inspector Cramer. I turned and told him, “Purley Stebbins,” and he came and took it. The conversation was even shorter than the one about the carton, and Cramer’s part was only a dozen words and a couple of growls. He hung up, went and got his hat, and headed for the hall, but a step short of the door he stopped and turned.

“I might as well tell you,” he said. “It’ll give you a better appetite for dinner, even if it’s not corn. About an hour ago Duncan McLeod sat or stood or lay on a pile of dynamite and it went off. They’ve got his head and some other pieces. They’ll want to decide whether it was an accident or he did it. Maybe you can help them interpret the facts.”

He turned and went.

One day last week there was a party at Lily Rowan’s penthouse. She never invites more than six to dinner — eight counting her and me — but that was a dancing party and around coffee time a dozen more came and three musicians got set in the alcove and started up. After rounds with Lily and three or four others. I approached Sue McLeod and offered a hand.

She gave me a look. “You know you don’t want to. Let’s go outside.”

I said it was cold, and she said she knew it and headed for the foyer. We got her wrap, a fur thing which she probably didn’t own, since top-flight models are offered loans of everything from socks to sable, went back in, on through, and out to the terrace. There were evergreens in tubs, and we crossed to them for shelter from the wind.

“You told Lily I hate you,” she said. “I don’t.”

“Not ‘hate.’” I said. “She misquoted me or you’re misquoting her. She said I should dance with you and I said when I tried it a month ago you froze.”

“I know I did.” She put a hand on my arm. “Archie. It was hard, you know it was. If I hadn’t got my father to let him work on the farm... it was my fault, I know it was... but I couldn’t help thinking if you hadn’t sent him that... letting him know you knew...”

“I didn’t send it, Mr. Wolfe did. But I would have. Okay, he was your father, so it was hard. But no matter whose father he was, I’m not wearing an arm band for the guy who packed dynamite in that carton.”

“Of course not. I know. Of course not I tell myself I’ll have to forget it... but it’s not easy...” She shivered. “Anyway I wanted to say I don’t hate you. You don’t have to dance with me, and you know I’m not going to get married until I can stop working and have babies, and I know you never are, and even if you do it will be Lily, but you don’t have to stand there and let me really freeze, do you?”

I didn’t. You don’t have to be rude, even with a girl who can’t dance, and it was cold out there.