Рекс Стаут - The Final Deduction

“Yes.”

“Any comment?”

“No.”

“Then I’m still not fired. I’m taking a leave of absence without pay. Say a month, but it may be more.”

His lips tightened. He took a deep breath. “Are you bent on vexing me beyond endurance?”

“No, sir. I want to grab an opportunity. When I arrived just now Noel Tedder was there on the sidewalk, vexed beyond endurance because you wouldn’t see him. His mother told him Wednesday that he could have the money she paid the kidnaper if he could find it and get it, and he came to offer you a one-fifth share to help him. Of course you wouldn’t be interested now that you only take cases where all you have to do is put a notice in the paper, so I’m going to tell him I’ll take it on myself. I took the liberty of putting him in the front room. I thought I ought to tell you first. Of course it’s long odds, but if I got it, the whole pile, my cut would be a hundred grand and I could quit vexing you and open my own office, maybe with Saul Panzer for a partner, and we could—”

“Shut up.”

“Yes, sir. That will be one advantage, you won’t have to bellow—”

“Shut up.”

“Yes, sir.”

He regarded me, not with affection. “So you expect to badger me into this fantastic gamble.”

“You might take a minute out to look at it. It would be satisfactory to find something that ten thousand cops and FBI men will be looking for. And each year when you top the eighty-per-cent bracket you relax. I admit it’s a big if, but if you raked this in and added it to what you’ve already collected this year, you could relax until winter, and it’s not May yet. If you missed, you would only be out expenses. As for my badgering you, we have nothing in prospect, and if I take a month off Fritz can dust your desk and empty the wastebasket and you can open the mail.”

“That’s bluster. You wouldn’t.”

“The hell I wouldn’t.”

He closed his eyes, probably to contemplate the rosy possibility of months and months with no work to do and no would-be customers admitted. In a minute he opened them and muttered, “Very well, bring him in.”

As Noel Tedder sat in the red leather chair and crossed his legs, showing blue and yellow socks beneath the striped slacks. Wolfe surveyed him. He had to adjust to the outfit. I have heard him say that men who wear conventional clothes are sheep, but I have also heard him say that men who wear unconventional clothes are popinjays. You can’t win.

Tedder asked him if I had told him what he wanted, and Wolfe nodded. He spoke. “The most unpromising enterprise I have ever been asked to undertake, if Mr. Goodwin understood you and I understood him. Mrs. Vail, your mother, told you that if you recovered the money she paid to ransom her husband, you could keep it; and if I help you, you will pay me one-fifth of what we recover if we’re successful, and nothing if we fail. Is that it?”

“That’s it. Of course I—”

“If you please. When did your mother tell you that?”

“Wednesday evening. And again this afternoon. With Jimmy gone — my stepfather — I thought I’d better ask her.”

“Wednesday evening, did she broach it or did you?”

“‘Broach’?”

“Bring it up. Introduce the idea.”

“I don’t remember. Does that matter?”

“It may. If you suggested it a conjecture enters. That you knew where the money was and you wanted to get it in a manner that would entitle you — don’t interrupt — entitle you to keep it. You come to me for help because you can’t very well just go and get it and produce it. You will give me hints, cannily of course, and guided by them Mr. Goodwin, under my direction, will find the money. Even if your hints have made me smell a rat, I’ll hold my nose and take my share. So who broached it, your mother or you?”

Tedder tittered. I don’t want to give a false impression, especially since I have mentioned his tenor. Men do titter. “Jesus,” he said, “that would be pups. That would be sharp. But how would I know where it is?”

“You would know where you put it Tuesday night after you or your confederate took it from your mother on Iron Mine Road.”

“Huh?” He was squinting. “You’ve lost me. Say it again.”

Wolfe wiggled a finger. “Mr. Tedder. You have come to me with an extraordinary proposal, and naturally my first question is what about you? Did you kidnap your stepfather?”

“Balls. He might have recognized me.”

“Did you have a hand in the kidnaping? Yes or no.”

“No. N, O, no.” Tedder was still squinting. “Got a Bible?”

“That wouldn’t establish it. If I assume your good faith, where are we? It would be witless to try to compete with the intricate and expert routine of the army of official investigators. If we start at all it must be from a point chosen by us and overlooked by them. Before I accept or decline your proposal I must know if you will agree with me on that point; and first of all I must ask, what if we find the money and your mother repudiates her engagement to let you keep it?”

“She won’t.”

“She might.”

Tedder shook his head. “Four people besides me heard her say it — my sister Margot, her brother Ralph, Frost, the lawyer, and Jimmy. Of course Jimmy’s dead.”

“She still might. I must tell you that, if she does, my share will be legally collectible and I’ll collect it.”

“Sure, why not? You won’t have to. My mother won’t renege. What’s the point I have to agree on?”

“It’s a series of assumptions, and you may not like them. The first and basic one is that Mr. Vail’s death was not an accident. He was murdered.”

“Huh?” Tedder uncrossed his legs and sat up. “He pulled that goddam statue over on him.”

“No.” Wolfe was emphatic. “I concede that that’s conceivable; it may even be sufficiently plausible for the police to accept it; but I reject it. There is no implication in the published accounts that he was drunk. Was he?”

“No.”

“Had he been drinking?”

“He had had a couple, not more. His usual, bourbon and water. He could handle half a dozen. He wasn’t even started. He was just sleepy. He said he couldn’t keep his eyes open and went to the couch.”

“And later, after you and the others had gone— Did you turn the lights off when you left?”

“All but one. Mother said to leave one on.”

“A good light?”

“Fairly good. A floor lamp by the wall.”

“And he awoke enough to realize where he was, leave the couch, stand, and walk; and, losing his balance, he caught at the statue, which was insecure, and brought it down on him. It’s possible, but I don’t believe it. I do not believe that a man awake enough to walk would be so befuddled that he couldn’t dodge a falling statue. Was it on a direct line from the couch to the door?”

“Not direct, but not far out.” Tedder was squinting again. “You said murder. How? Was he so sound asleep that he didn’t wake up when someone dragged him off the couch and over to the statue and pushed it over on him? Do you believe that?”

“No. He was drugged.”

“The hell he was.”

“He must have been. In one of his drinks. The handiest assumption is chloral hydrate, which is easily procured. In solution in an alcoholic beverage it has almost no taste. A moderate dose induces a deep sleep approaching coma. It decomposes rapidly and will not be detected by an autopsy unless it is performed within three or four hours after death, and even then the only reliable test is identification of urochloralic acid in the urine. That test is made only when chloral hydrate is specifically suspected, and with Mr. Vail I doubt if it was. I am not parading; I had this surmise yesterday and consulted a book.”