Rex Stout - Death of a Demon

The red leather chair was four feet away from the end of Nero Wolfe’s desk, so when she got the gun from her handbag she had to get up and take a step to put it on the desk. Then she returned to the chair, closed the bag, and told Wolfe, “That’s the gun I’m not going to shoot my husband with.”

Sitting facing her with my back to my desk, which was at right angles to Wolfe’s, I raised my brows. I hadn’t expected her to put on an act. When she had phoned the previous afternoon to ask for an appointment she had of course sounded a little jumpy, as most people do when they call the office of a private detective, but she had been quite matter-of-fact in giving the details. Her name was Lucy Hazen, Mrs. Barry Hazen. She gave her address, on East 37th Street between Park and Lexington. All she wanted was thirty minutes with Nero Wolfe, to tell him something confidential. She didn’t want him to do anything, not even give her advice; she merely wanted to tell him something; and she would pay one hundred dollars for the half-hour. She could and would pay more if she had to, but she hoped the hundred would be enough.

In November or December, when Wolfe’s income has reached a point where out of a hundred received he can keep only twenty bucks, he will make an appointment only for someone or something very special, but this was January, no big fee was in prospect, and even a measly C would help in the upkeep of his old brownstone on West 35th Street, including staff, particularly since he wouldn’t have to work for it. So it was set for 11:30 the following morning, Tuesday.

When the doorbell rang at 11:30 on the dot and I went to let her in, she gave me a smile and said, “Thank you for getting him to see me.” Handshakes can be faked and usually are, but smiles can’t. It isn’t often that a man gets a natural, friendly, straightforward smile from a young woman who has never seen him before, with no come-on, no catch, and no dare, and the least he can do is return it if he has that kind in stock. As I took her to the office and helped her off with her coat, which was mink, I was thinking that you never know, even the good-looking wife of a well-known public relations operator like Barry Hazen could have her feelings on straight. I was pleased to meet her.

So I was disappointed when she put on an act. It is not natural for a woman to open a conversation with a stranger by taking a revolver from her bag and saying that’s the gun she isn’t going to shoot her husband with. I must have been wrong about the smile, and since I don’t like to be wrong I was no longer pleased to meet her. I raised my brows and tightened my lips.

Wolfe, in his oversized chair behind his desk, darted a glance at the gun, returned his eyes to her, and grunted. “I am not impressed,” he said, “by histrionics.”

“Oh,” she said, “I’m not trying to impress you, I’m only telling you. That’s what I came for, just to tell you. I thought it would be more — more definite, I guess — if I brought the gun and showed it to you.”

“Very well, you have done so.” Wolfe was frowning. “I understand that you intend to ask me for no service or advice; you wish only to tell me something in confidence. I should remind you that I am not a lawyer or a priest; a communication from you to me will not be privileged. If you tell me about a crime I can’t engage not to disclose it. I mean a serious crime, not some petty offense such as carrying a deadly weapon for which you have no permit.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, carrying a weapon.” She dismissed it with a little gesture. “That’s all right. There hasn’t been any crime and there isn’t going to be, that’s just the point. That’s what I came to tell you, that I’m not going to shoot my husband.”

Wolfe’s eyes were narrowed at her. He is convinced that all women are dotty or devious, or both, and here was more evidence to support it. “Just that?” he demanded. “You wanted half an hour.”

She nodded. She set her teeth on her lip, nice white teeth, and in a moment released it. “Because I thought it would be better if I told you something about... why. If you will regard it as confidential.”

“With the reservation I have made.”

“Of course. You know who my husband is? Barry Hazen, Public Relations?”

“Mr. Goodwin has informed me.”

“We were married two years ago. I was the secretary of a client of his, Jules Khoury, the inventor. My father, Titus Postel, was also an inventor, and he was associated with Mr. Khoury until his death five years ago. That’s where I met Barry, at Mr. Khoury’s office. I thought I really was in love with him. I have tried and tried to decide what was the real reason why I married him, I mean the real one, whether it was only because I wanted to have—”

She stopped and put her teeth on her lip. She shook her head, with energy, as if to chase a fly. “There you are,” she said. “I mean there I am. You don’t need to know all that. I’m blubbering, fishing for pity. You don’t even need to know why I want to kill him.”

Wolfe muttered, “It’s your half-hour, madam.”

“I don’t hate him.” She shook her head again. “I think I despise him — I know I do — and he won’t let me get a divorce. I tried to leave him, I did leave him, but he made such a — There I go again! I don’t need to tell you all that!”

“As you please.”

“It’s not as I please, Mr. Wolfe, it’s as I must!”

“As you must, then.”

“This is what I must tell you. He has a gun in a drawer in his bedroom. That’s it there on your desk. We have separate bedrooms. You know how there can be something in your mind but you don’t know it’s there until all of a sudden there it is?”

“Certainly. The subconscious is not a grave; it’s a cistern.”

“But we don’t know what’s in it. I didn’t. One day a month ago, it was the day after Christmas, I went to his bedroom and took the gun from the drawer and looked to see if it was loaded, and it was, and all of a sudden I was thinking how easy it would be to shoot him while he was in bed asleep. I said to myself, “You idiot, you absolute idiot,’ and put the gun back, and I didn’t go near that drawer again. But the thought came back, it kept coming, mostly when I was trying to go to sleep, and it got worse. It got worse this way, it wasn’t just going in when he was asleep and getting the gun and shooting him, it was planning how to do it so I wouldn’t get caught. I knew it was idiotic, but I couldn’t stop. I could not! And one night, just two nights ago, Sunday night, I got out of bed trembling all over and went to the shower and turned on the cold water and stood under it. I had found a plan that would work. I don’t have to tell you what the plan was.”

“As you please. As you must.”

“It doesn’t matter. I went back to bed, but I didn’t sleep. I wasn’t afraid I might do something in my sleep, I was afraid of what my mind might do. I had found out that I couldn’t manage my mind. So yesterday afternoon I decided I would fix it so my mind would have to quit. I would tell someone all about it and then the plan wouldn’t work, and no plan would work so I wouldn’t get caught. Telling a friend wouldn’t do, not a real friend, because that would leave a loophole. Of course I couldn’t tell the police. I have no pastor because I don’t go to church. Then I thought of you, and I phoned for an appointment, and here I am. That’s all, except this: I want you to promise that if my husband is shot and killed you will tell the police about my coming here and what I said.”

Wolfe grunted.