Рекс Стаут - Please Pass the Guilt

She was making a fair try at meeting his eyes. She spoke: “It wasn’t—” Her tongue got in the way and she stopped and started over: “It wasn’t a lie. It was exactly like I told you. If Mr. Browning won’t admit it, if he denies—”

“Pfui. I haven’t discussed it with Mr. Browning. The conclusive evidence that you couldn’t have made that call did not come from him. Even candor may not serve you now, but certainly nothing else will. Unless you tell me what and who induced you to tell me that lie, you’re in for it. You’ll leave here not with your employer, but with a policeman, probably for detention as a material witness. I will not—”

“You can’t!” Mrs. Odell was on the edge of her chair. “You know you can’t! You guaranteed in writing!”

“Remove her, Archie,” Wolfe said. “If necessary, drag her.”

I rose. She tilted her head to focus up at me and said, “You don’t dare. Don’t dare to touch me.”

I said, “I dare easy. I admit I’d rather not, but I have bounced bigger and stronger women than you and have no scars. Look. You tried to steal home and got nailed, and no wonder. You didn’t even have sense enough to check where Browning was that Friday night. As for that guarantee in that receipt you got, it says, quote, ‘Unless circumstances arise that put me or him under legal compulsion to reveal it.’ End quote. Okay, the circumstances are here. The cops have spent a thousand hours trying to find out why your husband went to the room and opened the drawer, and who knew he was going to. Now I know. So I’m withholding essential evidence in a murder case, and there’s a statute that puts me under legal compulsion to reveal it. Also, I’m not just a law-abiding citizen, I’m a licensed private detective, and I don’t want to lose my license and have to start a new career, like panhandling or demonstrating. So even if Mr. Wolfe got big-hearted and decided just to bow out, there would still be me. I feel responsible. I am responsible. I started this by writing you that letter. Mr. Wolfe told Miss Haber that unless she comes clean he will open the bag. I may or may not stay with him on the unless . I am good and sore, and for a dirty crinkled dollar bill with a corner gone I would go now to the drug store on the corner and ring a police sergeant I know. I also know a man on the Gazette who would love to have a hot item for the front page, and I could back it up with an affidavit. And would.”

I turned to Wolfe. “If I may offer a suggestion. If you still want her bounced, okay, but from her face I think she has got it down.”

I turned back to her. “If you get the idea that you can say it was all a lie, that you wanted to fasten it on Browning and made it all up, nothing doing. They found the LSD in your husband’s pocket and they’ve got it. You’re stuck, absolutely, and if you try to wriggle you’ll just make it worse.”

She had kept her eyes at me. Now they went to her right, clear around past Wolfe to Miss Haber, and they certainly saw nothing helpful. Below the crease in the narrow forehead, the secretary’s eyes weren’t aimed anywhere. They could have been seeing her hands clasped on her lap, but probably they weren’t seeing anything.

Mrs. Odell aimed hers at Wolfe. “You said you haven’t discussed it with Browning. The — the LSD. Who have you discussed it with?”

“Mr. Goodwin. No one else.”

“Then how did you— How can you—”

“Mr. Goodwin talked this morning with a man who owns a yacht. At nine o’clock in the evening of Friday, May sixteenth, when he anchored in a cove on the Long Island shore, two of the guests aboard were Mr. and Mrs. Amory Browning. In all my experience with chicanery, madam, I have never encountered a more inept performance. A factor in our animus is probably the insult to our intelligence; you should have known that we would inquire as to Mr. Browning’s whereabouts that evening, and therefore you should have. By the glance you just gave Miss Haber I suspect that you are contemplating another inanity: saying it was some other evening. Pfui. Don’t try it. Look at Miss Haber.”

She didn’t have to; she already had. And she proceeded to demonstrate that she was by no means a complete fool. She cocked her head at me for a long, steady look, and then cocked it at Wolfe. “I don’t believe,” she said, “that you have really decided to tell the police about it. If you had, you wouldn’t have phoned Miss Haber and—”

“I haven’t said I have decided. I said, to Miss Haber, ‘Unless you tell me what and who induced you to tell that lie.’”

“ I’ll tell you. I induced her.”

“When?”

“Three days ago. Saturday evening. And Sunday morning, before I called Goodwin. What induced her was money. She needs money. She has a younger brother who has got himself into — but that doesn’t matter, what she needs it for. And anyway, I think Browning put that bomb there. I’m sure he did. I don’t know how he knew Peter was going to open that drawer, but I’m sure he did. Maybe Peter told somebody. You didn’t know Peter, you don’t know what a wonderful man he was. He married me for my money, but he was a wonderful husband. And Browning killed him, and with all the money I have, now there’s only one thing I want to do with it. I don’t think the police will ever get him, and you know something they don’t know. Can you handle Goodwin?”

“No.” He was scowling at her. “No one can ‘handle’ Mr. Goodwin. But he handles himself reasonably well, and he wouldn’t divulge information he got as my agent without my consent. My problem is handling me. Your fatuous attempt to hoodwink me relieves me of my commitment, but I too am a licensed private detective. If Mr. Cramer learns that those seven people were here last evening, as he probably will, and if he comes to see me, as he almost certainly will, I’ll be in a pickle. I have many times refused to disclose information on the ground that it was not material, but the fact that your husband went to that room and opened that drawer in order to put LSD in the whisky is manifestly material. Confound it, they even have the LSD — that is, you say they have it.”

“They do. They showed it to me.” She opened her bag and took out the checkfold. “I’ve made one idiotic mistake with you and I don’t intend to make another one. I’m going to give you a check for one hundred thousand dollars, but I have sense enough to know that I have to be careful how I do it. If you think that I think I can pay you and Goodwin for not telling the police about the LSD, I don’t. I know I can’t. But I do think they will never get Browning, and I think you might. I think the only chance of getting him is if you do it. I don’t care what it costs. The hundred thousand dollars is just to start. You may have to give somebody twice that much for something.” She slid the pen out and started to write on the check stub.

“No,” Wolfe said. “You can’t pay me at all on the terms you imply. I certainly would not engage to demonstrate that Mr. Browning killed your husband. I might engage to try to learn who killed your husband and to get evidence that would convict him. As for withholding information from the police, that must be left to my discretion. Mr. Goodwin and I are disinclined to share with others information that gives us an advantage.”

“It was Browning. Why do you think it wasn’t?”

“I don’t. He is as likely a candidate as anyone — much the most likely, if he knew of your husband’s intention to drug the whisky.” He swiveled to face the red leather chair. “Miss Haber. You didn’t tell Mr. Browning about it, but whom did you tell?”