Рекс Стаут - Please Pass the Guilt

The Heron was in the parking lot at the marina and I drove Sylvia — sure, we had been Sylvia and Archie the last three hours — to a human hive in the East Seventies, only a block away from a spot where an FBI man had once insulted me because I was tailing a man he wanted to tail. She didn’t invite me up. Wolfe was in the middle of dinner when I got home and he doesn’t like to dawdle while I catch up, so I ate in the kitchen, with Fritz.

Later, in the office, when I asked him if he wanted Sylvia Venner verbatim he said yes, omitting only trivia, we had all evening. I asked, including the personal parts, and he said, enough of it to exhibit her. So I had a free hand. Omitting trivia, it took only ten minutes to get us on board the boat and under way, and another five to get us to the spot where we anchored and agreed that the air made us hungry. Of course I enjoyed my description of the picnic lunch in detail, but he didn’t. He set his jaw and squinted at me, and did something he seldom does; he used profanity. “Good god,” he growled. “Are you — how do you feel?”

“All right now. Of course it was tough, but what the hell, I was working. During the feast she said she supposed I knew what etymology is, and I said hah, I work for Nero Wolfe. She asked if that was relevant and said she didn’t know much about him, that they tried to get him on her program but he wouldn’t. You remember that.”

“Yes.”

“She said, quote, ‘I think words are fascinating. Take words like “pecker” and “prick.” In their vulgar sense, or maybe I should say their colloquial sense.’”

“Me: ‘You mean “prick” as a noun, not as a verb.’”

“She: ‘Yes, a noun. It means “a pointed instrument.” “Pecker” just means “an instrument for pecking,” and “peck” means “to strike repeatedly and often with a pointed instrument.” So the definition of “pecker” and “prick” is identical.’”

“Me: ‘Sure. I’ve never looked them up, but evidently-’”

His grunt stopped me. He growled, “I said omit trivia.”

“This is not trivia. She was leading up to a point, and she made it. The point was that men make women say ‘piss’ and ‘pee’ — p -double- e — when they urinate because ‘penis’ begins with p , and what if they made them say ‘viss’ and ‘vee’? Vagina. And she said it’s male chauvinism. Doesn’t that exhibit her?”

And once again I got a completely different reaction from the one I expected. I suppose I will never know him as well as I think I do. I did know where he stood on the question of male chauvinism, but I should have considered how he felt about words.

He said, “Indeed.”

I said, “Yes indeed. Women’s Lib.”

He flipped a hand. “That’s merely the herd syndrome. Fad. The issue is the influence of male dominance on language. Has that woman made a contribution to the study of linguistics? If so, there should be some indication in the record of matriarchy, but there is no adequate...”

Letting it hang, he pushed his chair back, rose, went straight to a spot in the shelves, got a book, and returned. As he sat, my good eyes told me it was History of Human Marriage by Westermarck. I had given it a ten-minute try one empty day long ago and decided I could get along without it. As he opened it, I asked, “Shall I tell the squad not to come in the morning because the issue now is a matter of linguistics, or will you need them for research?”

He glared at me, transferred it to the book, tossed it on the desk, and said, “Very well, proceed, but only what is material. No flummery.”

So I no longer had a free hand. I reported. When I finished and he asked for comments, as usual, I said, “Nothing to raise my pay. One, I doubt if she is saving anything that would open a crack. Two, it would suit her fine if Browning dropped dead, but if she planted the bomb she wouldn’t have risked a whole afternoon with me. She’s not that kind. Three, at least we know that Meer had blood on his hands that other people could see, so maybe that helps to explain him .”

“Not enough to justify that outrageous meal,” he said, and reached for the book.

Fritz had left to spend a night and a day and another night as he saw fit, so before I went upstairs to dress properly for joining Lily Rowan’s party at the Flamingo, I brought a bottle of beer to help with the language problem.

Since Wolfe’s nine-to-eleven session in the plant rooms doesn’t apply on Sundays, he was in the office when the help came at ten o’clock. That was about the most useless two hours we ever spent with them. Wolfe’s idea was to have them talk about everyone they had seen, in the slim hope of our getting at least a glimmer of some kind of a hint.

No. Nothing.

If you are inclined to quit because I seem to be getting nowhere, no wonder. I’m sorry, but in these reports I don’t put in stunts to jazz it up, I just report. Of course I can leave things out, and I do. I’ll skip that two-hour Sunday conference, except for one little item. Orrie said that Dennis Copes didn’t have a secretary, and the girl in the stenographer pool who often took stuff for him was a stuck-up bitch, and he added, “Of course Archie would have had her holding hands.” He can’t quite ditch the idea that he should have my job. I admit there is one little detail of detective work that he can do better than I can, but he doesn’t know what it is so I won’t name it. They were told to go back in the morning and try some more. The theory was that somebody there must know something , which seemed reasonable.

The only thing that happened that day worth reporting was that Lily Rowan and I, at Shea Stadium, watched the Mets take the Cardinals, 7 to 3.

At ten o’clock Monday morning I sent a messenger to the CAN building with a white cardboard box addressed to Miss Helen Lugos. The box contained a cluster of Broughtonia sanguinea. They had been picked by Wolfe, who won’t let even me cut his orchids, but the card in the box had my name. At 11:30 I decided that she must have opened it, phoned, and got a female who said that Miss Lugos was engaged and did I wish to leave a message. When you get up to vice-president, especially one who will soon be president because the other candidate was murdered, even secretaries are often hard to get. I decided that she might not have seen the box yet and postponed it to after lunch.

It was after four o’clock and Wolfe was up in the plant rooms when I finally got her. She said right off, “Thank you for the beautiful flowers.” Neither warm nor cool, just polite.

“You’re welcome. I suggested them, Mr. Wolfe picked them, and we both packed them. It’s a bribe. Mr. Wolfe thinks I understand women better than he does and wants me to have a talk with you. I don’t think this office is the best place for it because that’s too much like telling you to come to a — oh, the District Attorney’s office. I can come to your place, or we can meet anywhere you say, or we can share a meal in the little pink room at Rusterman’s. Perhaps dinner this evening? Women are supposed to like pink rooms, as of course you know. I’m going on talking to give you time to consider it; I didn’t suppose you’d have a yes right at the tip of your tongue.”

“I haven’t got one anywhere. Thank you, but no.”

“Then the pink room is out. Have you a suggestion?”

“I have a question. Has Mrs. Odell asked you to talk with me?”

“Mrs. Odell hasn’t asked me anything. She has hired Nero Wolfe to do a job, and she has asked people at CAN to cooperate, from Mr. Abbott down, as you know. We would like to suit their convenience. In this case, your convenience.”