Rex Stout - Death of a Demon

“No telling. If so it’s been cleaned. It’s fully loaded and the cartridges all look alike.”

“Did she shoot him?”

That was routine: he merely wanted my opinion as a qualified expert on women. His over-all estimate of me and my relations with females is full of contradictions, but that doesn’t bother him. “For a quick guess,” I said, “no. To make it final I would need facts.”

“So would I. Did you shoot your husband, Mrs. Hazen?”

She shook her head.

“I prefer to hear it if you can speak. Did you shoot him?”

“No.” She had to push it out.

“Since my promise was to you, you may of course release me from it. Do you wish me to phone the police?”

“Not now.” The blood was beginning to creep back into her skin. “You don’t have to now. You won’t ever have to. He’s dead, and I didn’t kill him.” She rose to her feet, not very steady, but not staggering. “That’s all over now.”

“Sit down.” It was a command. “It’s not so simple. When the police ask you where you were this morning from eleven o’clock on what will you say? Confound it, quit propping yourself on my desk and sit down! That’s better. What will you say?”

“Why...” She was on the edge of the chair. “Will they ask me that?”

“Certainly. Unless they already have the murderer and the evidence beyond all question, and that’s too much to hope for. You will have to account for every minute since you last saw your husband. Did you come here in a cab?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll say so. You’ll have to. And when they ask why you came to see me what will you say?”

She shook her head. She looked at me and back at him. “Oh,” she said. “You’ll have to tell me what to say.”

He nodded. “I expected that.” His head turned. “Archie. What grounds have you for your guess?”

I was back in my chair. “Partly personal,” I told him, “and partly professional. Personal, my general impression of her, and specifically her smile when I let her in. Professional, two points. First, if she shot him last night after making an appointment with you and then came here with that jabber, she is either completely loony or the trickiest specimen I have ever laid eyes on, and I’ll buy neither one. Second, and this is really it, her face when she realized he was dead. She might fake a faint or the staggers or even some fancy hysterics, but no woman alive could make her blood go like that. I said I would need facts to make it final, but I should have said I would need facts, and good ones, to make me guess again.”

Wolfe grunted and turned to her with a scowl. “Granting that Mr. Goodwin’s grounds are valid, what then? When the police learn that the widow of a man murdered last night came to see me this morning they will harass me beyond tolerance. I owe you nothing. You are not my client. You have paid me a hundred dollars for half an hour of my time, now stretched to more than an hour, and released me from my promise, so that incident is closed. You asked me to tell you what to say when they ask you what you came here for, but they will also ask me. What if you fail to follow my advice and my account differs from yours? Why should I take that risk? I can see no alternative— What are you doing now?”

She had opened her bag and was taking out the check-fold and pen. “I’m going to write a check,” she said. “Then I’ll be your client. What shall I... how much?”

He nodded. “I expected that too. It won’t do. I am not a blackmailer. I take pay for services, not for forbearance, and you may not need my services. If you do, we’ll see. Will you answer some questions?”

“Of course. But I’ve taken more than my half an hour, and I owe you—”

“No. If you didn’t shoot your husband we have both been snared by circumstance. First, instead of a question, a statement: you can’t take the gun. The gun stays here. Now. When and where did—”

“But I’m going to put it back where I got it!”

“No. I accept Mr. Goodwin’s guess as a hypothesis, but I can’t let you take the gun. When and where did you last see your husband?”

“Last night. At home. We had people for dinner.”

“Details. How many people? Their names.”

“They were clients of Barry’s, important clients — all but one. Mrs. Victor Oliver. Anne Talbot, Mrs. Henry Lewis Talbot. Jules Khoury. Ambrose Perdis. Ted — Theodore Weed — he’s not a client, he works for Barry. Seven, counting Barry and me.”

“When did the guests leave?”

“I don’t know exactly. Barry had told me he was going to discuss something with them, and I wouldn’t be needed, and after the coffee I left. That’s when I last saw him, there with them. I went upstairs to my bedroom.”

“Did you hear him when he went up to bed?”

“No. There’s a spare bedroom between his room and mine. And I was played out. I told you, I had the first good night’s sleep I have had for a month.”

“You didn’t see him this morning?”

“No. He wasn’t there. He rises early. The maid who — oh. Oh!”

“What?”

“Nothing — nothing that matters to you. I am not liking myself, Mr. Wolfe. I said he rises early, but now I can say he rose early, and I wanted to sing it. I did! No one is good enough to have a right to be glad that someone has died. The Lord knows I’m not. What if I never loved him? What if I married him because—”

Wolfe cut her off. “If you please. You’ll have plenty of time for that. About the maid?”

She swallowed with her lips pressed tight. “I’m sorry. The maid who sleeps in and gets breakfast said he hadn’t come down, and she had gone up and the door of his room was open and his bed hadn’t been slept in. He had done that before, not very often, once or twice a month.”

“Without telling you where he was going or, afterwards, where he had been?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know or can you guess where he went last night, or with whom, or to whom?”

“No. I have no idea.”

“I am still assuming that you didn’t kill him, but how vulnerable are you? Were you continually in your house — it is a house, not an apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Were you in it continually from the time you went to your bedroom last night until you left this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Would the maid have heard you if you had gone out during the night? Sneaked out, and later in again?”

“I don’t think so. Her room is in the basement.”

Wolfe nodded. “You are vulnerable. What time did you leave this morning?”

“At five minutes past eleven. I wanted to be sure to get here on time.”

“When did you take the gun from the drawer in your husband’s room?”

“Just before I left. I didn’t decide to bring it until the last minute.”

“How many people know that you despised your husband?”

She gazed at him, not blinking, no reply.

“‘Despise’ is your word, Mrs. Hazen. It is not adequate. No one kills a man, or wants to, merely because she despises him. But I’m not going into that; it could take all day. How many people know that you despised him?”

“I don’t think anyone does.” It was barely audible, and I have good ears. “I have never told anyone, not even my best friend. She may have suspected, I suppose she did.”

“Pfui.” Wolfe flipped a hand. “Your maid knows, for one, if she’s not a dolt. She is of course being questioned at this moment. Was your husband wealthy?”

“I don’t know. He had a large income, he must have, he was free with money. He owned the house.”

“Any children?”

“No.”

“You will inherit?”

Her eyes flashed. “Mr. Wolfe, this is ridiculous! I don’t want anything from him!”