Рекс Стаут - Please Pass the Guilt

“Sure,” he said. “He’s next to the top at Trinity Fiduciary. What has he done?”

“As far as I know, nothing. It isn’t another paternity problem. I want to ask him a couple of questions about something that he’s not involved in — and he won’t be. He’s the best bet for a piece of information we need, that’s all. But the sooner we get it, the better, and Mr. Wolfe thought you might be willing to ring him and tell him that if I phone him for an appointment, it would be a good idea for him to tell me to come right away and get rid of me.”

He said he would, and ten minutes later his secretary phoned and said Farquhar was expecting a call from me. She even gave me the phone number, and I dialed it and got his secretary.

So at 11:05 there I was, at his desk. I was apologizing. “Mr. Wolfe didn’t want to bother you,” I said, “about a matter that you will consider trivial, but he sort of had to. It’s about something that happened more than three weeks ago — Friday, May sixteenth. A lawyer has a client who is being sued for damages, fifty thousand dollars, and he has asked Mr. Wolfe to check on a couple of things. The client’s name is O’Neill, Roger O’Neill, and a man named Walsh claims that around half past eight that evening he was in his small boat, fishing in the Sound, near Madison, about a mile off shore, and O’Neill’s big cruiser came along fast, doing at least twenty, he says, and hit his boat right in the middle — cut it right in two. The sun had set but it wasn’t dark yet, and Walsh says he had a light up. He wasn’t hurt much, but his twelve-year-old son was; he’s still in the hospital.”

Farquhar was frowning. “But where do I come in? I have a busy morning.”

“I’m keeping it as brief as possible. Walsh says there were witnesses. He says a bigger boat, around seventy feet, was cruising by, about two hundred yards farther out, and there were people on deck who must have seen it happen. He tried to see its name, but he was in the water and the light was dim. He thinks it was Properoo .” I spelled it. “We can’t find a boat with that name listed anywhere, but your yacht, Prospero , comes close to it. Friday, May sixteenth. Three weeks ago last Friday. Were you out on the Sound that day?”

“I’m out every Friday. That Friday... three weeks...” He shut his eyes and tilted his head back. “That was... No... Oh, sure.” His eyes opened and his head leveled. “I was across the Sound. Nowhere near Madison. Before nine o’clock we anchored in a cove near Stony Brook, on the other shore.”

“Then it wasn’t you.” I stood up. “Have you ever seen a boat named Properoo ?”

“No.”

“If you don’t mind — Mr. Wolfe always expects me to get everything. Who was on board with you?”

“My wife, and four guests. Mr. and Mrs. Percy Young, and Mr. and Mrs. Amory Browning. And the crew, two. Really, damn it—”

“Okay. I’m sorry I bothered you for nothing, and Mr. Wolfe will be too. Many thanks.”

I went.

In the elevator, going down, a woman moved away from me, clear away. I wasn’t bothering to manage my face, and probably its expression indicated that I was all set to choke or shoot somebody. I was. Down in the lobby I went to a phone booth and dialed the number I knew best, and when Fritz answered I said, “Me. I want him.”

It took a couple of minutes. It always does; he hates the phone.

“Yes, Archie?”

“I’m in a booth in a building on Broad Street. I have just had a talk with James J. Farquhar. At nine o’clock Friday evening, May sixteenth, he anchored his yacht in a cove on the Long Island shore. The four guests aboard were Mr. and Mrs. Percy Young and Mr. and Mrs. Amory Browning. I’m calling because it’s nearly eleven-thirty, and if I proceed as instructed I couldn’t have her there in less than an hour, which would be too close to lunch. I suggest that I phone her instead of going to get her, and—”

“No. Come home. I’ll telephone her. The number?”

“On my yellow pad in the middle drawer. But wouldn’t it—”

“No.” He hung up.

So he too was set for murder. He was going to dial it himself. He was going to risk keeping lunch waiting. As I headed for the subway, which would be quicker than scouting for a taxi in that territory, I was trying to remember if any other client, male or female, had ever equaled this, and couldn’t name one.

But when I entered the old brownstone, and the office, a few minutes before noon, I saw he wasn’t going to choke her or shoot her. He was going to slice her up. At his desk, with his oilstone and a can of oil on a sheet of paper, he was sharpening his penknife. Though he doesn’t use it much, he sharpens it about once a week, but almost never at that time of day. Evidently his subconscious had taken over. I went to my desk and sat, opened a drawer and took out the Marley.38, and asked, “Do I shoot her before you carve her, or after?”

He gave me a look. “How likely is it that Mr. Browning telephoned him last night, or saw him, and arranged it?”

“No. A hundred to one. I took my time with a phony buildup and watched his face. Also at least seven other people would have to be arranged: his wife, the four guests, and the crew. Not a chance. You got Miss Haber?”

“Yes.” He looked at the clock. “Thirty-five minutes ago. I made it—”

The doorbell rang. I put the Marley in the drawer and closed it, and went. But in the hall, I saw more than I expected. I stepped back in and asked Wolfe, “Did you invite Mrs. Odell too?”

“No.”

“Then she invited herself. She came along. So?”

He shut his eyes, opened them, shut them, opened them. “Very well. You may have to drag her to the front room.”

That would have been a pleasure — preferably by the hair with her kicking and screaming. She performed as expected. When I opened the front door, she brushed past me rudely and streaked down the hall, with Miss Haber at her tail, trotting to keep up. Thinking she might actually scratch or bite, I was right behind as she entered the office and opened up, heading for Wolfe’s desk. I’m not sure whether the five words she got out were “If you think you can” or “If you think you’re going,” before Wolfe banged a fist on the desk and bellowed at her:

“Shut up!”

I don’t know how he does it. His bellow is a loud explosion, a boom, as a bellow should be, but also it has an edge, it cuts, which doesn’t seem possible. She stopped and stood with her mouth open. I was between her and him.

“I told Miss Haber to come,” Wolfe said in his iciest tone. “Not you. If you sit and listen, you may stay. If you don’t, Mr. Goodwin will remove you — from the room and the house. He would enjoy it. I have something to say to Miss Haber, and I will not tolerate interruption. Well?”

Her mouth was even wider than normal because her teeth were clamped on her lower lip. She moved, not fast, toward the red leather chair, but Wolfe snapped, “No. I want Miss Haber in that chair. Archie?”

I went and brought a yellow chair and put it closer to my desk than his. She gave me a look that I did not deserve, and came and sat. I doubted if Charlotte Haber would make it to the red leather chair without help, so I went and touched her arm, and steered her to it.

Wolfe’s eyes at her were only slits. “I told you on the telephone,” he said, “that if you were not here by twelve o’clock, I would telephone a policeman, Inspector Cramer of Homicide South, and tell him what you told me Sunday evening about your telephone call to Mr. Browning on May sixteenth. I’ll probably find it necessary to tell him anyway, but I thought it proper to give you a chance to explain. Why did you tell me that lie?”