Рекс Стаут: Kill Now — Pay Later

“Him?” Fritz turned. “ Dieu m’en garde.” He shook his head. “Too young. Then she is not a client?”

“Not one to send a bill to.” I poured milk. “Anyhow, as you know, he wouldn’t take a paying client if one came up the stoop on his knees. It’s December, and his tax bracket is near the top. If she wants him to help and he won’t, I’ll take a leave of absence and handle it myself. You saw her face.”

He snorted. “She should be warned. About you.”

“Sure. I’ll do that first.”

I don’t gulp milk. When the glass was half empty I tiptoed out to the office door. Wolfe’s back was still turned and Elma was putting jam on a piece of toast I finished the milk, taking my time, and took the glass to the kitchen, and when I returned Wolfe had about-faced and put the book down and she was saying something. I entered and crossed to my desk.

“... and he had never done that before,” she was telling Wolfe. “I thought he might have gone back to the district attorney’s office, so I phoned there, but he hadn’t. I phoned two of his friends but they hadn’t seen him. I went to work as usual, he goes to that building every morning, and I told Mr. Busch and he tried to find out if he was in the building, but no one had seen him. Then a detective came and asked me a lot of questions, and later, after lunch, another one came and took me to the district attorney’s office, and I—”

“Miss Vassos.” Wolfe was curt “If you please. You have eaten, though not much, and your faculties are apparently in order. You said you must tell me, and I would not be uncivil to your father’s daughter, but these details are not essential. Give me brief answers to some questions. You said that they think your father killed himself, he jumped off. Who are ‘they’?”

“The police. The detectives.”

“How do you know they do?”

“The way they talked. What they said. What they asked me. They think he killed Mr. Ashby and he knew they were finding out about it, so he killed himself.”

“Do they think they know why he killed Mr. Ashby?”

“Yes. Because he had found out that Mr. Ashby had seduced me.”

I lifted a brow. You couldn’t be much briefer than that There wasn’t the slightest sign on her face that she had said anything remarkable. Nor was there any sign on Wolfe’s face that he had heard anything remarkable. He asked, “How do you know that?”

“What they said this afternoon at the district attorney’s office. They used that word, ‘seduced.’ ”

“Did you know that your father had found out that Mr. Ashby had seduced you?”

“Of course not, because he hadn’t My father wouldn’t have believed that even if Mr. Ashby had told him, or even if I had gone crazy and told him, because he would have known it wasn’t so. My father knew me.”

Wolfe was frowning. “You mean he thought he knew you?”

“He did know me. He didn’t know I couldn’t be seduced — I suppose any girl could be seduced if her head gets turned enough — but he knew if I was I would tell him. And he knew if I ever was seduced it wouldn’t be Mr. Ashby or anyone like him. My father knew me.”

“Let’s make it clear. Are you saying that Mr. Ashby had not seduced you?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Had he tried to?”

She hesitated. “No.” She considered. “He took me to dinner and a show three times. The last time was nearly a year ago. He asked me several times since, but I didn’t go because I had found out what he was like and I didn’t like him.”

Wolfe’s frown had gone. “Then why do the police think he had seduced you?”

“I don’t know, but someone must have told them. Someone must have told them lies about Mr. Ashby and me, from what they said.”

“Who? Did they name anyone?”

“No.”

“Do you know who? Or can you guess?”

“No.”

Wolfe’s eyes came to me. “Archie?”

That was to be expected. It was merely routine. He pretends to presume that he knows nothing, and I know everything, about women, and he was asking me to tell him whether Elma Vassos had or had not been seduced by Dennis Ashby, yes or no. What the hell, I wasn’t under oath, and I did have an opinion. “They don’t go by dreams,” I said. “She’s probably right, someone has fed them a line. Say thirty to one.”

“You believe her.”

“Believe? Make it twenty to one.”

She turned her head, slowly, to look straight at me. “Thank you, Mr. Goodwin,” she said and turned back to Wolfe.

His eyes narrowed at her. “Well. Assuming you have been candid, what then? You said you must tell me, and I have listened. Your father is dead. I esteemed him, and I would spare no pains to resurrect him if that were possible. But what can you expect me to tender beyond my sympathy, which you have?”

“Why...” She was surprised. “I thought — isn’t it obvious, what they’re going to do? I mean that they’re not going to do anything? If they think my father killed Mr. Ashby on account of me and then killed himself, what can they do? That will end it, it’s already ended for them. So I’ll have to do something, and I don’t know what, so I had to come to you because my father said—” She stopped and covered her mouth with her spread fingers. It was the first quick, strong movement she had made. “Oh!” she said through the fingers. Her hand dropped. “Of course. You must forgive me.” She opened her bag, a big brown leather one, stuck her hand in, and took something out. “I should have done this before. My father never spent any of the money you paid him. This is it, all dollar bills, the bills you gave him. He said he would do something special with it some day, but he never said what But he said—” She stopped. She clamped her teeth on her lip.

“Don’t do that,” Wolfe snapped.

She nodded. “I know, I won’t I haven’t counted it, but it must be nearly five hundred dollars; you paid him three times a week for over three years.” She got up and put it on Wolfe’s desk and returned to the chair. “Of course it’s nothing to you, it’s nothing like fifty thousand, so I’m really asking for charity, but it’s for my father, not for me, and after all it will mean that you got your shoes shined for nothing for more than three years.”

Wolfe looked at me. I had let her in, I admit that, but from his look you might have thought I had killed Ashby and Pete and had seduced her into the bargain. I cocked my head at him. He looked at her. “Miss Vassos. You are asking me to establish your father’s innocence and your chastity. Is that it?”

“My chastity doesn’t matter. I mean that’s not it.”

“But your father’s innocence is.”

“Yes. Yes!”

Wolfe wiggled a finger at the stack of dollar bills, held by rubber bands. “Your money. Take it. It is, as you say, nothing for a job like this, and if I am quixotic enough to undertake it I don’t want a tip. I make no commitment If I said yes or no now it would be no; it’s midnight, bedtime, and I’m tired. I’ll tell you in the morning. You will sleep here. There’s a spare bedroom, adequate and comfortable.” He pushed his chair back and rose.

“But I don’t want... I have no things...”

“You have your skin.” He frowned down at her. “Suppose this. Suppose the assumptions of the police are correct: that Mr. Ashby had in fact seduced you, that your father learned about it and killed him, and that, fearing exposure, he then killed himself; and suppose that under that burden of knowledge you go home to face the night alone. What would you do?”

“But it’s not true! He didn’t!”

“I told you to suppose. Suppose it were true. What would you do?”