Rex Stout: Eeny Meeny Murder Mo

“No. It was strictly personal.”

“Did it touch your professional reputation or integrity?”

“It did not.”

“Was a woman involved?”

“Yes.”

“Her name?”

Jett shook his head. “I’m not a cad, Mr. Wolfe.”

“Was it Mrs. Morton Sorell?”

Jett’s mouth opened, and for three breaths his jaw muscles weren’t functioning. Then he spoke. “So that was it. Miss Paige was right. I want — I demand to see that statement.”

“Not yet, sir. Later, perhaps — or not. Do you maintain that the episode involving Mrs. Sorell had no relation to your firm’s interests or your professional integrity?”

“I do. It was purely personal, and it was brief.”

“When did it occur?”

“About a year ago.”

“When did you last see her?”

“About a month ago, at a party. I didn’t speak with her.”

“When were you last with her tête-à-tête?”

“I haven’t been since — not for nearly a year.”

“But you are still seriously perturbed at the chance that Mr. Otis has learned of the episode?”

“Certainly. Mr. Sorell is our client, and his wife is our opponent in a very important matter. Mr. Otis might suspect that the episode is — was not merely an episode. He has not told me of the statement you showed him, and I can’t approach him about it because he has ordered Miss Paige not to mention it to anyone, and she didn’t tell him she had already told me. I want to see it. I have a right to see it!”

“Don’t start barking again.” Wolfe rested his elbows on the chair arms and put his fingers together. “I’ll tell you this: there is nothing in the statement, either explicit or allusive, about the episode you have described. That should relieve your mind. Beyond that—”

The doorbell rang.

I was wrong about them. As soon as I got a look at them through the one-way panel I guessed who they were, but I had the labels mixed. My guess was that the big broad-shouldered one in a dark blue chesterfield tailored to give him a waist, and a homburg to match, was Edey, fifty-five, and the compact little guy in a brown ulster with a belt was Heydecker, forty-seven, but when I opened the door and the chesterfield said they wanted to see Nero Wolfe, and I asked for names, he said, “This gentleman is Frank Edey and I am Miles Heydecker. We are—”

“I know who you are. Step in.”

Since age has priority I helped Edey off with his ulster, putting it on a hanger, and let Heydecker manage his chesterfield, and then took them to the front room and invited them to sit. If I opened the connecting door to the office Jett’s voice could be heard and there was no point in his trusting Wolfe’s discretion if he couldn’t trust mine, so I went around through the hall, crossed to my desk, wrote “Edey and Heydecker” on my memo pad, tore the sheet off, and handed it to Wolfe. He glanced at it and looked at Jett.

“We’re at an impasse. You refuse to answer further questions unless I tell you the contents of the statement, and I won’t do that. Mr. Edey and Mr. Heydecker are here. Will you stay or go?”

“Edey?” Jett stood up. “Heydecker? Here?”

“Yes, sir. Uninvited and unexpected. You may leave unseen if you wish.”

Evidently he didn’t wish anything except to see the statement. He didn’t want to go and he didn’t want to stay. When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to decide, Wolfe decided for him by giving me a nod, and I went and opened the connecting door and told the newcomers to come in. Then I stepped aside and looked on, at their surprise at seeing Jett, their manners as they introduced themselves to Wolfe, the way they handled their eyes. I had never completely squelched the idea that when you are in a room with three men and you know that one of them committed a murder, especially when he committed it in that room only eighteen hours ago, it will show if you watch close enough. I knew from experience that the idea wasn’t worth a damn, that if you did see something that seemed to point you were probably wrong, but I still had it and still have it. I was so busy with it that I didn’t go to my desk and sit until Jett was back in the red leather chair and the newcomers were on two of the yellow ones, facing Wolfe, and Heydecker, the big broad-shouldered man, was speaking.

His eyes were at Jett. “We came,” he said, “for information, and I suppose you did too, Greg. Unless you got more at the DA’s office than we did.”

“I got damn little,” Jett said. “I didn’t even see Howie, my old schoolmate. They didn’t answer questions, they asked them. A lot of them I didn’t answer and they shouldn’t have been asked — about our affairs and our clients. Naturally I answered the relevant ones, the routine stuff about my relations with Bertha Aaron and my whereabouts and movements yesterday afternoon. Not only mine, but others’. Particularly if anyone had spoken at length with Bertha, and if anyone had left the office with her or soon after her. Obviously they think she was killed by someone connected with the firm, but they don’t say why — at least not to me.”

“Nor me,” Edey said. He was the compact undersized one and his thin tenor fitted him fine.

“Nor me,” Heydecker said. “What has Wolfe told you?”

“Not much. I haven’t been here long.” Jett looked at Wolfe.

Wolfe obliged. He cleared his throat. “I presume that you gentlemen have come with the same purpose as Mr. Jett. He asks for any information that will give light, with emphasis on the reason for Miss Aaron’s coming to see me. He assumes—”

Heydecker cut in. “That’s it. What was she here for?”

“If you please. He assumes from the circumstances that she was killed because she was here, to prevent a revelation she meant to make, and that is plausible. But surely the police and the District Attorney haven’t withheld all of the details from you. Haven’t they told you that she didn’t see me?”

“No,” Edey said. “They haven’t told me.”

“Nor me,” Heydecker said.

“Then I tell you. She came without appointment. Mr. Goodwin admitted her. She asked to see me on a confidential matter. I was engaged elsewhere, upstairs, and Mr. Goodwin came to tell me she was here. We had a matter under consideration and discussed it at some length, and when we came down her dead body was here.” He pointed at Heydecker’s feet. “There. So she couldn’t tell me what she came for, since I never saw her alive.”

“Then I don’t get it,” Edey declared. The brilliant idea man was using his brain. “If she didn’t tell you, you couldn’t tell the police or the District Attorney. But if they don’t know what she came to see you about, why do they think she was killed by someone in our office? It’s conceivable that they got that information from someone else, but so soon? They started in on me at seven o’clock this morning. And I conclude from their questions that they don’t merely think it, they think they know it.”

“They do, unquestionably,” Heydecker agreed. “Mr. Goodwin. You admitted her. She was alone?” That was the brilliant trial lawyer.

“Yes.” Since we weren’t before the bench I omitted the “sir.”

“You saw no one else around? On the sidewalk?”

“No. Of course it was dark. It was twenty minutes past five. On January fifth the sun set at 4:46.” By gum, he wasn’t going to trap me.

“You conducted her to this room?”

“Yes.”

“Leaving the outer door open perhaps?”

“No.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Yes. If I have one habit that’s totally automatic, it’s closing that door and making sure it’s locked.”