Рекс Стаут - Please Pass the Guilt

He cocked his head at the terrorist. “I suppose,” he said, “you speak Arabic.”

“Of course.”

“Arabic is spoken at your Sunday meetings?”

“Of course.”

“Fortunately. For you. Your attempt at speaking English as it would be spoken by a cultured Palestinian is inept. You shouldn’t try it. What is your real name?”

He didn’t bat an eye. “That wouldn’t help you,” he said. Then he asked a question. To me the words he used were only sounds, but I knew it was a question by the inflection.

“I did,” Wolfe said, “but long ago. Arabic is not one of my languages. I want your name because I may need to ask you something.”

Nasir ibn Bekr shook his head. “I have told you all I know that could help. This is a big risk for me, coming to you at all, and I will not add to it. You are right, Arabic is not my native tongue. My native tongue is Spanish. But my Arabic is good; it must be. I will say this, if something happens, if one of them says something that you should know, I will telephone or come.” He rose and buttoned the top button of his jacket, looked at me and back at Wolfe, and said, “I must thank you.”

“A moment,” Wolfe said. “This house is under surveillance. By the police. Mr. Goodwin will show you out — at the rear. There’s a passage through to Thirty-fourth Street.”

The terrorist shook his head. “That isn’t necessary. Thank you again, but I can’t be followed. No matter who tries, even in Baghdad or Cairo I can get loose.”

He moved, and I went to open the door. It would have been mildly interesting to step out to the stoop and see who came out from where, to tail him, but I didn’t want to give anyone the idea that we gave a damn. As I turned from shutting the front door, I called down the hall, “All clear!” and the trio appeared from the alcove and followed me into the office. They lined up at the end of Wolfe’s desk.

“Comments,” Wolfe said. “Fred?”

“I don’t think so,” Fred said. “How would he get in Browning’s room when no one was there, and why would he pick the bottom drawer?”

“Orrie?”

“The League of Jewish Patriots,” Orrie said.

“No,” Saul said, “he’s not the type. They’re all athletes. Of course he’s a Jew, but not that kind. I agree with Fred. His reasons, and also the timing. The bomb doesn’t have to be connected with the fact that that was the day they were going to decide on the new president, but it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t.”

“But it’s only ten to one,” I said. “Even if it’s twenty to one we have to give it a look.”

“Actually,” Wolfe said, “he is taking no risk. Even if he knows there is only one chance in a thousand, he is giving himself that chance to fill a purse. — Archie. Type this list of names, adding his name, and the address, and give it to Fred. Fred, you will see if it is worth an effort. Enter that apartment only with all possible precaution; it isn’t worth even the slightest hazard. Our usual understanding, of course. Further comments?”

There weren’t any. I swung the typewriter around, Fred sat, and Saul and Orrie went to the front room.

That’s a sample of what the ad brought us. I don’t say typical; it wasn’t. Of course if you advertised in those two papers that you had sixty-five grand to hand out, no matter what for, and your name and address were in the phone book, you would know you would get plenty of calls and callers, and the best we could expect was that just one of them would really have something. If what I was after was merely to fill pages, it would be easy to add a dozen or so with the next couple of days, up to 9:42 P.M. Thursday evening. Some of the items might even add to your knowledge of human nature — for instance, the middle-aged man in a spotless white suit and a bushy wig who had had a dream Tuesday night. He came Wednesday afternoon. In the dream a man had opened the bottom drawer of a desk and fastened, with tape, a small plastic box to the partition above the drawer, about nine inches back from the front. A thin copper wire about a foot long protruded from the end of the box. With the drawer open only a couple of inches he had taped the loose end of the wire to the inside of the front of the drawer, and closed it, and departed. If we would show him photographs of the men who had entered or might have entered Amory Browning’s room that day, he would tell us which one had put the box in the drawer, and he would so testify under oath. That was what made it really good, that he would testify without even being subpoenaed. Or the female star buff who phoned for an appointment and came Thursday morning — a skinny specimen with hollow cheeks and big dreamy eyes. If we would give her the birth dates of all the suspects she would supply information that would almost certainly do the trick.

There were three or four that Saul and Orrie spent some time and effort on. Fred had made no headway with the Arab terrorists.

To show you how low I was by Thursday evening after dinner, I’ll admit what I was doing. First, what I wasn’t doing. I was not at the poker table at Saul’s apartment. I was in no mood for being sociable, and I would probably have drawn to an inside straight. I was at my desk in the office, scowling at the entries in a little looseleaf book which I call The Nero Wolfe Backlog. It contained a list of certain items that were in his safe deposit box at the Continental Trust Company, and I was considering which one or ones should be disposed of at the current market price if I was asked for a suggestion, as I would be soon if we got nothing better than Arab terrorists and dreamers and star buffs. Wolfe was at his desk with a book of stories by Turgenev, and that was bad too. When he’s low he always picks something that he has already read more than once.

When the doorbell rang, I glanced at my wrist watch as I rose, as usual. Sometimes it’s needed for the record. Eighteen minutes to ten. I went to the hall, flipped the switch of the stoop light, took a look, stepped back in the office, and said, “You’ll have to mark your place. It’s Dennis Copes.”

“You haven’t seen Dennis Copes.”

“No, but Saul described him.”

He shut the book without using the bookmark, and of course no dog ear, since it was Turgenev. I went and opened the front door, and the visitor said, “You’re Archie Goodwin,” and stepped right in as if I wasn’t there.

“And you’re—” I said.

“Copes. Dennis Copes. Not as famous as you, but I will be. Is your famous fat boss available?”

I was so damn glad to see him, to see someone who might actually have something to bite on, that I thought that on him the long hair and two-inch sideburns looked just fine. And when, in the office, he marched across and put out a hand, Wolfe took it. He seldom shakes hands with anybody, and never with strangers. He was low. As Copes sat he hitched his pants legs up — the nervous hands Saul had mentioned.

“That was a good ad,” he said. “‘Any person who communicates as a result of this advertisement thereby agrees to the above conditions.’ Very neat. What agency?”

Wolfe frowned. “Agency?”

“Who wrote it?”

“Mr. Goodwin.”

“Oh.” He looked at me: “Nice going Archie.” Back to Wolfe: “That ad would have made a wonderful five-minute spot — you and Mrs. Odell, you right here at your desk and her standing with her hand on your shoulder. You would do most of the talking, with your voice. She would have been glad to pay for prime time — say ten o’clock. A much bigger audience than the ad. Didn’t you consider it?”

“No.”

“Too bad. How many nibbles have you had?”

“None.”

“ None ? Impossible. All right, you’re not telling and why should you? But you can’t say it’s none of my damn business, because in a way it is. If someone else knows what I know, and if they’ve already told you, I’ve missed the bus. Have you — let’s see, how shall I put it — has anyone told you anything that makes you want to have a talk with Kenneth Meer or Helen Lugos?”