Рекс Стаут - Please Pass the Guilt

“And you want it cracked.”

“Hell yes. Pete Odell was my favorite man.”

“If no one knew he was going to open that drawer, he died by inadvertence.”

“But whoever planted that bomb killed him.” Falk turned a palm up. “Look, why am I here? This will make me an hour late for something. I wanted to know if you were going to waste time on the idea that the bomb was intended for Odell. The police still think it could have been and there’s not a chance. Damn it, I knew him. It just isn’t thinkable that he would have told anyone he was going to try to bust Browning by doping his whisky.”

“If he had told you, would you have tried to dissuade him?”

Falk shook his head. “I can’t even discuss it as a hypothesis. If Pete Odell had told me that, I would just have stared at him. It wouldn’t have been him. Not his doing it, his telling me.”

“So the bomb was for Browning?”

“Yes. Apparently.”

“Not certainly?”

“No. You told us yesterday that the journalists have different ideas, and we have too — I mean the people who are involved. They are all just guessing really — except one of course, the one who did it. My guess is no better than anybody else’s.”

“And no worse. Your guess?”

Falk’s eyes came to me and returned to Wolfe. “This isn’t being recorded?”

“Only in our skulls.”

“Well — do you know the name Copes? Dennis Copes?”

“No.”

“You know Kenneth Meer. He was here last evening. He’s Browning’s man Friday, and Copes would like to be. Of course in a setup like CAN, most of them want someone else’s job, but the Copes-Meer thing is special. My guess is that Meer had a routine of checking that drawer every afternoon and Copes knew it. Copes did a lot of work on that program about bombs and getting one would have been no problem. That’s my best guess partly because I can’t quite see anyone going for Browning with a bomb. A dozen people could have, but I can’t see any of them actually doing it. You said one of the reporters thinks it was Browning’s wife, but that’s absurd.”

“Did Kenneth Meer check the drawer every day?”

“I don’t know. I understand he says he didn’t.”

I could fill three or four pages with the things Theodore Falk didn’t know, but they didn’t help us, so they wouldn’t help you. When I returned to the office after going to the hall to let him out, we didn’t discuss him, for two reasons: the look we exchanged showed that we didn’t need to, and Fritz came to announce dinner. The look was a question, the same question both ways: How straight was Falk? Did we cross him off or not? The look left it open.

The fact was, Wolfe hadn’t really bit into it. It was still just batting practice. He had taken the job and was committed, but there was still the slim chance that something might happen — the cops might get it or the client might quit — so he wouldn’t have to sweat and slave. Also in my book there was the idea that I had once mentioned to him, the idea that it took a broil with Inspector Cramer to wind him up. Of course when I had offered it, he had fired me, or I had quit, I forget which. But I hadn’t dropped the idea, so when the doorbell rang at 11:10 Wednesday morning and I went to the hall and saw who it was on the stoop through the one-way glass, and stepped back in the office and said “Mr. Fuzz,” I didn’t mind a bit.

Wolfe made a face, opened his mouth and then clamped his jaw, and in five seconds unclamped it to growl, “Bring him.”

That was a first — the first time Inspector Cramer had ever arrived and been escorted to the office in the middle of a session with the hired hands. And Saul Panzer did something he seldom does — he stunted. He was in the red leather chair, and when I ushered Cramer in I expected to find Saul on his feet, moving up another yellow chair to join Fred and Orrie, but no. He was staying put. Cramer, surprised, stood in the middle of the rug and said, loud, “Oh?” Wolfe, surprised at Saul, put his brows up. I, pretending I wasn’t surprised, went to get a yellow chair. And damned if Cramer didn’t cross in front of Fred and Orrie to my chair, swing it around, and park his big fanny on it. As he sat, Saul, his lips a little tight to keep from grinning, got up and came to take the yellow chair I had brought. That left the red leather chair empty and I went and occupied it, sliding back and crossing my legs to show that I was right at home.

Wolfe didn’t merely turn his head left to face me; he swiveled. “Was this performance arranged?” he demanded.

“Not by me,” I told him. “This chair was empty, that’s all.”

“I guess I was just too surprised to move,” Saul said. “I didn’t know the Inspector was coming.”

“Balls,” Cramer said. “No one knew I was coming.” He focused on Wolfe. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”

“I hope you are,” Wolfe said, not thorny. “We are discussing the prospect of making an important contribution to the investigation of a murder.”

Cramer nodded. “Yeah. I thought you would be.”

Actually the discussion had barely begun. Saul Panzer, who looks like a guy who was trying to sell encyclopedias but gave up and quit, and is actually the best operative alive; and big-footed, heavy-set Fred Durkin, who looks as if he wouldn’t know what an encyclopedia is but actually bought a Britannica for his kids; and good-looking, six-foot Orrie Cather, who would trade an encyclopedia for a full-length mirror if he didn’t already have one, but can handle a tough assignment when he needs to, had come in at ten o’clock, and I had briefed them good. On some jobs they are called in on, some details have to be reserved, but not that one. I had given them the whole picture, and Wolfe, coming down from the plant rooms at eleven o’clock, had just got started.

When Wolfe faced Cramer in my chair with me in the red leather chair, I had his profile from his left instead of his right, and I had to adjust to it. I don’t know why it made so much difference, but it did. His chin looked more pointed and his hair thicker. He asked Cramer politely, “You have questions?”

“Nothing specific.” Cramer was leaning back, comfortable, also polite. “Don’t mind me. Go right ahead.” Saul’s stunt had cued him.

Wolfe’s eyes passed Orrie and Saul to Fred. “I was asking,” he said, “if Archie covered the ground to your satisfaction. Do you need more?”

“I hope not.” Fred riffled the pages of his notebook. “No room for more.”

“What do you suggest?”

That routine was nearly always just talk, but now and then it led to something. “Well,” Fred said, “you can’t just walk up to the counter at Macy’s and say one Number Four gelignite bomb and charge my account and don’t bother to wrap it.” He looked straight at Cramer. “What the hell.”

Wolfe nodded. “No doubt the police have made every effort. Twenty-two days. Three weeks yesterday. You suggest...?”

“I need time to sort it out.”

“Yes. Orrie?”

“I need more,” Orrie said. “For instance, I need to know if Odell had gloves on. One theory is that he was putting the bomb in the drawer to get Browning, and if so, he would have used gloves if he wasn’t a moron. I suggest that you ask Inspector Cramer if he was wearing gloves, and if not, that will narrow it. Also you can ask him about fingerprints.”

“Anything else?”

“Maybe. After I know that.”

“Saul?”

“I may as well say it,” Saul said. “Maybe it wasn’t just surprise. I had a suggestion ready and the Inspector coming flipped me. I was going to say that if you asked for a look at the files, both Homicide and the DA, they might want to cooperate. After three weeks they must have quite a stack of stuff that—”