Рекс Стаут - A Family Affair

“Significant of what?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I intend to find out. One week after that dinner Mr. Bassett was shot and killed. Ten minutes after Pierre told Mr. Goodwin that he saw one of you hand Mr. Bassett a slip of paper at that dinner — told him that and nothing else — he was killed by a bomb in this house. Mr. Urquhart, did you hand Mr. Bassett a slip of paper at that dinner?”

“No. And I want to make—”

“No is enough.” Wolfe’s head turned. “Did you, Mr. Judd?”

“No.”

“Did you, Mr. Ackerman?”

“No.”

“Did you, Mr. Vilar?”

“No. I am—”

“Did you, Mr. Hahn?”

“No.”

“You told Mr. Goodwin no, Mr. Igoe. I ask you again. Did you?”

“Huh. No.”

Wolfe’s head went left and right to take them in. “There you are, gentlemen. Rather, there I am. Either Pierre lied to Mr. Goodwin or one of you lies. I don’t think Pierre lied; why would he? Another question: did any of you see one of the others hand Mr. Bassett a slip of paper? I don’t need another round of noes; I invite a yes. Any of you?”

No yes. Roman Vilar said, “We can’t ask Pierre about it. He’s dead.” Vilar, euphemistic security, was all points — pointed chin, pointed nose, pointed ears, even pointed shoulders. He was probably the youngest of them — at a guess, early forties. His saying that they couldn’t ask Pierre also pointed, for me, to the fact that when Wolfe had told me Wednesday morning what to say to them, or one of them, if I got the chance, I hadn’t fully realized how much dust could be kicked up by one little lie. One more mention by anybody that Pierre had told me that he had seen one of them hand Bassett a slip of paper and I would begin to believe it myself.

“Yes,” Wolfe said, “Pierre Ducos is dead. I saw him, on his back, with no face. I can’t ask him either. If I could, almost certainly you would not be here, not all of you. Only one.” He focused on Urquhart. “You said you are concerned not only about what Mr. Goodwin told Mr. Igoe but also about what Mr. Igoe told him. So am I. That’s why I am having inquiries made about you — all of you. Mr. Igoe used the term ‘obsession.’ I don’t have obsessions, but I too am attentive to the skulduggery of Richard Nixon and his crew. And the purpose of that gathering, arranged by Mr. Bassett, was to discuss it. Yes?”

“I suppose you might—”

“Hold it, Urquhart. Is this being recorded, Wolfe?”

Albert O. Judd, the other lawyer. He was about the same age as Vilar. He looked like a smoothie, but not the oily kind, and he had paid somebody a good four C’s for cutting and fitting his light-gray coat and pants, the kind of fabric that suggests stripes but doesn’t actually have any. Marvelous.

Wolfe eyed him. “You must know, Mr. Judd, that that question is cogent only if the one who asks it can rely on the one who answers, and why should you rely on me? It isn’t to be expected that I’ll say yes, and what good is my no? However, I say it. No.” His eyes took them in, from Judd around to Urquhart. “Mr. Vilar asked me on the telephone if I had told the police or the District Attorney what Mr. Igoe told Mr. Goodwin, and I said no. He asked me if I intended to but withdrew the question because he couldn’t expect me to answer. But I will answer. Again no. At present I intend to tell no one. I do intend to learn who killed Pierre Ducos, and I have reason to surmise that in doing so I’ll also learn who killed Harvey Bassett.”

He turned a palm up. “Gentlemen. I know why you’re here, of course. At present the officers of the law have no reason to assume that any of you were implicated in a homicide. Two homicides. Naturally they have inquired about Mr. Bassett’s movements and activities immediately prior to his death, but he was a busy man of affairs, and they probably know nothing of that dinner a week earlier. If they knew what I know, they would not merely assume that one or more of you might be implicated; you would be the main focus of their investigation.” He turned to me. “Your notebook, Archie.”

I got it, and a pen. He had closed his eyes. He opened them to see that I was equipped, and closed them again. “Not a letterhead, plain paper. Merely a list of questions. How long had you known Mr. Bassett and what were your relations with him? Why were you included in a meeting called by him to discuss Richard Nixon’s use or abuse of tape recorders? Did you know that Mr. Bassett felt that Mr. Nixon had debased and polluted tape recorders, comma, and did you agree with him? Have you ever been involved in any activity connected with the phenomenon called Watergate, comma, and if so what and how and when? Have you ever had any contact with anyone connected with Watergate? To your knowledge, comma, even hearsay, comma, have any of the other five guests ever been connected in any way with Watergate, comma, and if so why? Where were you and what were you doing last Friday night, comma, October twenty-fifth, comma, from six p.m. to two a.m.? Where were you and what were you doing last Monday, comma, October twenty-eighth, comma, from twelve noon to twelve midnight?”

He opened his eyes. “Six carbons. No, only five, we won’t need one. No hurry.” He turned to them. “That, gentlemen, is a sample of the questions you are going to be asked. Either by me or by the police. You have a choice. You realize that—”

“This has gone far enough. Too far. Wolfe, I am a senior vice-president of the fourth largest bank in New York. We will pay you one hundred thousand dollars to represent our interests. One half tomorrow in cash, and the remainder guaranteed — probably by us jointly and certainly by me personally. Orally. Not in writing.”

Willard K. Hahn’s voice was soft and low, but the kind of soft and low you don’t have to strain to hear. He was a square. He would have been obviously a square even without his square jaw and square shoulders — the opposite of Vilar with his points.

Wolfe was looking down his nose at him. “Not a good offer, Mr. Hahn. If as payment for services, too much. If as a bribe to muzzle me, not enough.”

“It’s for services. Too much? You saying too much, when you have just said we would be the main focus of a murder investigation? Vilar says you charge the highest fees in New York. If I need something, I buy it and I pay for it. I knew Harvey Bassett for twenty years. He was a good customer of my bank. And he’s dead. Ben Igoe says he had an obsession about Richard Nixon and the tapes, and that’s true, he did, but that wasn’t his only obsession. When I heard of his death, how he died, my first thought was his wife — his obsession about her . Have you—”

“Goddam it, Hahn, you would!” Igoe’s strong baritone. “You would drag her in!”

“You’re damn right I would. He would drag her in, he always did, you know that, you ought to. Or he would drag her out.” Back to Wolfe. “That slip of paper. If one of us handed him a slip of paper, it wouldn’t have been about Nixon and tapes. That was what we were talking about, Nixon and tapes, why hand him a slip of paper, why not just say it? Evidently you think that slip of paper had something to do with his being murdered. If it did, it wasn’t about tapes. I know nothing about it. I never heard of it until Ben Igoe told me what Goodwin told him, but when he did I— What did I say, Ben?”

“You said it was probably about Dora. Huh. You would.”

“I think,” Roman Vilar said, “that we should stick to what brought us here. The list of questions, Mr. Wolfe. You say they’ll be asked either by you or by the police. Asked by you now? Here and now?”

“No,” Wolfe said. “It would take a night and a day. I didn’t invite you to come in a body; you invited yourselves. I intended to see you, but singly, after getting reports from the men I sent to make inquiries. I suggest that—”