Rex Stout - Counterfeit for Murder

“Greetings,” I said heartily. “This is a relief! I’m sorry we couldn’t make it sooner, Hattie, but Mr. Parker did his best. You’ll take her home, Nat? I’m tied up here.”

“Don’t call me Hattie,” she said, “until I find what you’re up to.”

“I brought her here,” Parker said, “because she insisted.” He looked harassed. “I’ll be going. I’ve canceled two appointments and I’m late for another one. Let me know if you need me.” He went.

“Every time I come here,” Hattie said, “there you stand. What good does it do to open the door if you fill it up?”

I stood aside and she entered. She took off the gray woolen gloves and stuck them in her coat pocket, and unbuttoned her coat, and I certainly would have been no good if I hadn’t helped her off with the coat, so I did, and put it on a hanger. By the time I had it on the rack she was at the office door, entering, and by the time I got to the office she was in the red leather chair and Wolfe was glowering at her.

“About that lawyer,” she said. “I’m not going to pay him too, and I told him so. When I told Buster I could pay forty-two thousand dollars that includes everything.”

Wolfe looked at me. I nodded. “All right. I told you I was under a spell. I scaled it down.”

He looked at her. “Very well, madam, I’ll pay the lawyer. You came to tell me that?”

“I told you before not to madam me. First I want to see that counterfeit money, then I’ll know I can trust you. Show it to me.”

Wolfe looked at me. I have seen him handle many a crisis, but that was too tough for him. “Archie?” he said.

I opened my desk drawer, took out three sheets of paper, and went and handed her one of them. “A cop named Cramer brought that,” I said. “Signed by a judge, ordering us to give him the bills and the wrapper. Cramer knows Mr. Wolfe and me and doesn’t like us. When he handed me that he sneered.”

“I thought so. You’re no good. So you—”

“Wait a minute. We had been afraid that would happen. The cop was too late.” I handed her another paper. “A man had already come with that, signed by a Federal judge, and I had turned the money over to him, so the cop was out of luck. I don’t say we had arranged it, but facts are facts. The cop was so sore he marched out without a word.” I handed her the third paper. “That’s the receipt the man signed.”

She hadn’t even glanced at any of the documents. She handed them back. “I wish I had been here,” she said.

“So do I, Miss Annis. You would have enjoyed it.”

“Call me Hattie.”

“With pleasure.” I returned the papers to the drawer and sat. “Did you have a hard night?”

“Not too hard. There was a couch and I got some naps, but the woman that stayed with me wouldn’t turn the lights out, and every two hours they came back and started in again. Cops are too mean to live, and they’re too dumb. They might have known I wouldn’t speak to a cop.”

“Didn’t you speak at all?”

“No. Didn’t I say I wouldn’t?”

“Not a word?”

“No. The worst part was I was hungry. They brought some stuff twice last night and again this morning, but of course I wouldn’t touch it. I don’t know what kind of drug they had in it, something to make me talk.”

“You haven’t eaten at all?”

“Of course not.”

Wolfe grunted. “That’s ridiculous. We have a spare room that is comfortable. Mr. Goodwin will take you to it, and my chef will take you a tray. After your fast you should eat with caution. Have you a preference?”

She cocked her head. “You bet I have, Falstaff. Let the lady enjoy herself. I know about your chef. How about some lamb kidneys bourguignonne?”

Wolfe doesn’t flabbergast easy, but that did it. He stared. “That would take time, mad — Miss Annis. At least two hours.”

“I don’t mind, I’ll take a nap. Is there a bathroom?”

“Certainly.”

“Then I can wash the smell of the cops off. But the other thing I want to know, what about the reward? We want that reward.”

“That’s problematical. I’ll keep it in mind. We have a more urgent matter to deal with. After you are refreshed—”

“What matter?”

“The job you hired me for. Investigation of the murder committed in your house.”

“I hired you to make the cops eat dirt, and you already have. The one named Cramer, is he a big one with a big red face and little blue eyes like a pig?”

“Pigs’ eyes are not blue. Otherwise the description fits.”

“Then you’ve already made him eat dirt. I wish I had been here. He was the first one in my room when they busted the door. That’s part of your job, to make them pay for that door. The murder, that’s their job. I’m surprised it was Tammy Baxter because I thought a counterfeiter would have more clothes, but of course when somebody came for the package and it wasn’t there he thought she had taken it and he killed her, but she should have known I had it because I told her yesterday morning—”

The phone rang and I swiveled and got it. A female said that Mr. Mandel wanted to speak to me, and after a wait he came on.

“Goodwin? Mandel of the District Attorney’s office. I want to see you. How soon can you be here?”

“Twenty minutes. If necessary.”

“It’s necessary. It’s ten minutes past twelve. I’ll expect you at twelve-thirty. Right?”

I told him yes, traffic permitting, hung up, and arose. “The DA’s office,” I announced. “I’m surprised it didn’t come sooner. You don’t need me anyway, you understand each other so well.”

I left them.

They kept me at 155 Leonard Street five and a half hours. All I got out of it was two corned beef sandwiches, a piece of blueberry pie, and two glasses of milk, on the house, eaten at the desk of assistant DA Mandel. What they got out of it was doubtful. In addition to Mandel, I had conversations with another assistant DA named Lindstrom, two detectives attached to the DA’s office, and District Attorney Macklin himself.

Over the years I have been suspected of a lot of things by various authorities, from corrupting a cop by buying him a drink to complicity in a murder, and that day they added a new one to the list. None of them came right out with it, but what was really biting them was their suspicion that I was in collusion with the United States government. Of course they covered other aspects of the case, all of them and thoroughly, but what they concentrated on was the package of phony lettuce. That was all the DA himself asked me about, and he put it to me point-blank: did I know the money was counterfeit? I told him point-blank no, and felt better; it’s always a relief to get a lie off your chest. He said of course I was lying, that I would have been a nitwit not to suspect it. I said it didn’t matter now anyway, since the Secret Service had it, and he blew his top. I admit it’s hard to believe that he actually thought I had disposed of evidence in a murder case by arranging for Leach to beat Cramer to it, but I suppose a DA has as much right to be a damfool as the people who voted for him.

It was a quarter past six when I left the building and flagged a taxi. By the time it turned into 35th Street I had decided that I wouldn’t wait until after dinner to go for Wolfe. He was too darned lazy to live. Since, thanks to me, Hattie had told him that he had already made Cramer eat dirt, he would consider that no matter what happened or didn’t happen he could send her a bill for a modest hunk of the forty-two thousand, say five grand, and why should he strain his brain? She was out on bail as a material witness and in no real danger. We had got rid of the contraband. There was no great hurry. Nuts, I decided. He had to be poked. As I mounted the stoop and put my key in the door I was choosing my opening remark from three I had hatched.