Rex Stout - Death of a Demon

She unlocked her fingers, straightened her shoulders, and took a long deep breath — in with her mouth closed and out with it open. “There!” she said. “That’s it.”

Wolfe was regarding her. “I engaged only to listen,” he said, “but I must offer a comment. Your stratagem should be effective as a self-deterrent, but what if someone else shoots him? And I report this conversation to the police. You’ll be in a pickle.”

“Not if I didn’t do it.”

“Pfui. Of course you will, unless the culprit is soon exposed.”

“If I didn’t do it I wouldn’t care.” She extended a hand, palm up. “Mr. Wolfe. After I decided to tell you and made the appointment, I had the first good night’s sleep I have had for a month. No one is going to shoot him. I want you to promise, so I can’t.”

“I advise you not to insist on a promise.”

“I must! I must know! ”

“Very well.” His shoulders went up a quarter of an inch and down again.

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

She opened her bag, a large tan leather one, and took out a checkfold and a pen. “I would rather make it a check than cash,” she said, “so it will be on record. Is a check all right?”

“Certainly.”

“I mentioned a hundred dollars to Mr. Goodwin. Will that be enough?”

He said yes, and she wrote, resting the check on the side of the bag. To save her the trouble of getting up to hand it over I went and took it, but when she had closed the bag she arose anyway, and was turning to get her coat from the back of the chair when Wolfe spoke.

“Ten minutes of your half-hour is left, Mrs. Hazen, if you have any use for it.”

“No, thank you. I just realized that wasn’t exactly the truth, what I told Mr. Goodwin, that I only wanted to tell you something. I wanted you to promise something too. I do thank you and I won’t take — oh! You say I have ten minutes?” She glanced at her wrist. She turned to me. “I would love to see the orchids — just a quick look. If you would, Mr. Goodwin?”

“It will be a pleasure,” I said, and meant it, but Wolfe was pushing back his chair. “Mr. Goodwin doesn’t owe you the ten minutes. I do,” he said, lifting his bulk. “Come with me. You won’t need your coat.” He headed for the door. She gave me a glance with a suggestion of a smile, and followed him out. The sound came from the hall of the elevator door opening and closing.

I had no kick coming. The ten thousand orchids in the three plant rooms up on the roof of the old brownstone were his, not mine. He did like to show them off — so would you if they were yours — but that wasn’t why he had intervened. He had some letters to dictate, and he thought that if I took her up to look at the orchids there was no telling when we would come back down. Years ago he decided, on insufficient evidence, that I forget about time when I am with an attractive young woman, and once he has decided something that settles it.

The phone rang. I got it at my desk and told it, “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.” It was a man over in Jersey who makes sausage to Wolfe’s specifications, wanting to know if we were ready for a shipment, and I switched it to Fritz in the kitchen. Thinking there was no better way for a licensed detective to fill idle time than by snooping, I picked up the mink coat for an inspection. When I saw that the label said Bergmann I decided that inspection would be superfluous and put it back on the chair. I picked up the gun that she wasn’t going to shoot her husband with. It was a Drexel .32, nice and clean, and the cylinder was full of cartridges, nothing for a lady with no permit to be toting around town. I inspected her check, East Side Bank and Trust Company, signed Lucy Hazen, and went and put it in the safe. After glancing at my watch, I turned on the radio for the noon news, and stood and stretched while I listened to it. Algeria was boiling. A building contractor on Staten Island denied that he had had favors from a politician. Fidel Castro was telling the Cuban people that the people who ran the United States government were a bunch of bums (my translation). Then:

“The body of a man named Barry Hazen was found this morning in an alley between two buildings on Norton Street in the lower West Side of Manhattan. He had been shot in the back and had been dead for some hours. No further details are available at present. Mr. Hazen was a well-known public-relations counselor. The Democratic leaders in Congress have apparently decided to center their fire—”

I turned it off.

I went and picked up the gun and smelled it, the barrel tip and the sides. That was silly but natural. When you would like to know if a gun has been fired recently you smell it automatically, but it doesn’t mean a thing unless it has just been fired, say within thirty minutes, and there has been no opportunity to clean it. I stood with it in my hand, looking at it, and then put it in a drawer of my desk. Her bag was there on the red leather chair, and I opened it and removed the contents. There were all the items you would expect a woman who wore Bergmann mink to have with her, but nothing more. I got the gun from the drawer, removed the cartridges, and examined them with a glass, to see if one of them, or maybe two, was brighter and newer than the others. They all looked alike. As I was returning the gun to the drawer the sound came from the elevator descending, its thud at the bottom, and the door opening. They entered, Mrs. Hazen in front, and she crossed to the red leather chair, picked up her bag, turned to Wolfe’s desk, and then turned to me.

“Where’s the gun?” she asked. “I’m taking it.”

“There has been a development, Mrs. Hazen.” I was facing her at arm’s length. “I turned on the radio for the news, and he said that — I’ll repeat it verbatim. He said, ‘The body of a mail named Barry Hazen was found this morning in an alley between two buildings on Norton Street in lower Manhattan. He had been shot in the back and had been dead for some hours. No further details are available at present. Mr. Hazen was a public-relations counselor.’ That’s what he said.”

She was gawking at me. “You’re m-m-m-m—” She started over. “You’re making it up.”

“No. That’s what he said. Your husband has been shot dead.”

The bag slipped from her hand to the floor and her face went white and stiff. I had seen people turn pale before, but I had never seen blood leave skin so thoroughly and so fast. She backed up an unsteady step, and I took her arm and eased her into the chair. Wolfe, who had stopped in the center of the room, snapped at me, “Get something. Brandy.”

I moved, but she said, “Not for me. He said that?”

“Yes.”

“He’s dead. He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

She rammed her fists against her temples and pounded them. Wolfe said, “I’ll be in the kitchen,” and turned to go. To him a woman overwhelmed, no matter by what, is merely a woman having a fit, and it’s too much for him. But I said, “Hold it, she’ll be all right in a minute,” and he came and looked down at her, let out a growl, went to his chair, and sat.

“I want to phone somebody,” she said. “I have to know. Who can I phone?” Her fists were in her lap.

“A shot of brandy or whisky wouldn’t hurt,” I told her.

“I don’t want anything. Who can I phone?”

“Nobody.” Wolfe was curt. “Not just now.”

Her head jerked to him. “Why not?”

“Because he must first consider whether I should phone — phone the police to report what you have told me. I promised to. Archie. Where’s the gun?”

“In my desk drawer.”

“Has it been fired recently?”