Рекс Стаут - Please Pass the Guilt

The first problem was how to get to her, and the second one was what to say when I did. “Her” was of course Madeline Odell, the widow. She was almost certainly in the clear on the bomb, she had the best reason for wanting the bomber to be caught and nailed, and she had the biggest stack. It was those two problems trying to take over that had caused me to make three big mistakes and several small ones at the poker game, and cost me money. They did not keep me from getting a good eight hours’ sleep, nothing ever does, and they didn’t affect my appetite at breakfast, but I skipped things in the Times that I usually cover, and I guess I was short with Fritz. In the office I actually forgot to put fresh water in the vase on Wolfe’s desk.

I still hadn’t decided at lunchtime. Of course any one of a dozen dodges would have got me to her; no one is inaccessible if you put your mind on it; but then what? If possible the approach should lead naturally to the proposition. After lunch I went for a walk with a couple of unnecessary errands for an excuse, and didn’t get back until after four o’clock, so Wolfe was up in the plant rooms and I had the office to myself. I swung the typewriter around and rolled paper in and gave it a try.

Dear Mrs. Odell: This is on Nero Wolfe’s letterhead because I work for him and am writing it in his office, but it is strictly personal, from me, and Mr. Wolfe doesn’t know I am writing you. I do so because I am an experienced professional detective and it hurts me to see or read about poor detective work, especially in an important case like the murder of your husband. Mr. Wolfe and I have of course followed the published accounts of the investigation, and yesterday he remarked to me that apparently the most crucial fact was being ignored, or at least not getting the priority it deserved, and I agreed with him. Such a criticism from him to the police or the District Attorney would probably have no effect, but it occurred to me this morning that it might have some effect if it came from you. If you wish to reach me the address and telephone number are above.

I read it over twice and made five improvements: I took out “strictly” and “professional,” changed “poor” to “inferior,” “crucial” to “important,” and “priority” to “attention.” I read it again, changed “an important case like” to “such a vital case as,” typed it on a letterhead with two carbons, signed it, and addressed an envelope to a number on East Sixty-third Street. I went to the kitchen to tell Fritz I was going out for air, and walked to the post office on Eighth Avenue.

Since it was a Friday afternoon in June, it was possible, even probable, that she wouldn’t get it until Monday, and nothing would interfere with my weekend pleasures at Shea Stadium, but a little after eleven o’clock Saturday morning, when Wolfe was dictating a long letter to an orchid collector in Malaysia, the phone rang and I swiveled and took it.

“Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

A businesslike female voice: “This is Mrs. Peter Odell’s secretary. She has received your letter and wishes to speak to Mr. Wolfe.”

Of course I had known that might happen, with Wolfe right there. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but Mr. Wolfe isn’t available and won’t be until Monday. Anyway I made it clear that the letter was personal.”

She covered the transmitter and I heard nothing. In a couple of minutes she was back: “Mr. Goodwin?”

“Here.”

“Mrs. Odell wishes to see you. Will you be here promptly at three o’clock?”

One of my basic opinions is that people who take things for granted should be helped to a better understanding of democracy, and at three o’clock it would be about the fourth inning, but I hadn’t been asked to write that letter. “Yes,” I said, “I’ll be there,” and hung up, and swiveled.

“Someone using your name in vain,” I told Wolfe. “People should read letters at least three times.” I looked at my notebook. “The last I have is ‘in spite of all the crosses hybridizers have tried.’”

It took another full page of the notebook.

My intention had been to get to Shea Stadium a little after one and enjoy a couple of hot dogs and a pint of milk while watching batting practice. Instead, I got to Sam’s diner on Tenth Avenue a little after one and enjoyed rye bread and baked beans, two items that never appear at Wolfe’s table, and then walked the nearly two miles from West Thirty-fifth Street to East Sixty-third. The people you see on midtown sidewalks Saturday afternoons are completely different from other days.

It was a five-story, forty-foot-wide stone mansion, between Fifth and Madison, and I was stopped at the entrance to the vestibule by a broad-shouldered husky with a Lathrop Protective Service badge on his buttoned-up jacket. Apparently after more than two weeks, pests — for instance, journalists — were still a problem, or Mrs. Odell thought they were. He said grimly, “Well, sir?”

I pronounced my name and said I was expected, and produced evidence of my identity from my card case. He entered the vestibule and pushed the button, and the door was opened by a woman in a neat gray uniform with a skirt that reached a good four inches below her knees who accepted my name without evidence. She crossed the marble floor to an intercom on a marble table and told it Mr. Goodwin was there, and in a couple of minutes there was the sound of an elevator about one-tenth as noisy as Wolfe’s. A door at the far end of the large entrance hall slid open, and a woman stuck her head out and invited me to join her. We went up past two doors and stopped at the third, and she led me down the hall to an open door at the front and stood aside for me to enter.

It was a big room, the whole width of the house, and my sweeping glance saw desks, working chairs and easy chairs, two couches, oil paintings, filing cabinets, a color television — and my glance stopped there because a ball game was on, Ralph Kiner was talking, and his audience was a woman propped against a bank of cushions on an oversized couch. Even if it hadn’t been her house I would have recognized her from her pictures in the Times and Gazette: a face bulged in the middle by wide cheek bones, and a wide full-lipped mouth. Her loose, pale blue dress or robe or sack was zippered shut in front, top to bottom. I crossed over to her and asked politely, “What’s the score?”

Her brown eyes darted to me and back to the game. “Mets two, Pirates four, last of the fourth. Sit down.”

I went to a chair not far from the couch that faced the TV set. Ed Kranepool was at bat. He went to three and two and then grounded out, ending the inning, and a commercial started yapping. As I looked around for the secretary and saw she wasn’t there, the sound quit and I turned back to Mrs. Odell. Remote control; she had pushed a button.

“I’ll leave the picture on,” she said. She sized me up head to foot, taking her time. My pants were pressed. “That was a poor excuse for a letter you sent me. ‘The most important fact,’ you said, but you didn’t say what it is.”

“Of course I didn’t.”

“Why ‘of course’?”

The commercial had finished and a Pirate was coming to bat. She left the sound off but sent her eyes back to the game, so I sent mine, too. “I work for Nero Wolfe,” I told the Pirate as he swung and missed. “He makes a living solving problems for people, and part of what they pay him pays my salary. It would be pretty dumb for me to tell people for free what he has said about their problems. I wrote that letter only because I hate to see a case bobbled.”

“Oh, come off it.” Her eyes darted to me and back to the game. “You invited me to reach you and wouldn’t put him on when I phoned. How much do you want?”