Рекс Стаут - The Father Hunt

Wolfe, his chair swiveled to face her, his fingers curled over the arm ends, spoke. “So Mr. Goodwin impressed you at first sight.”

Her eyes, meeting his, widened a little. “Yes. He did.”

“That may be a point for you and it may not. It is nothing new for him to impress a young woman. He has reported his conversation with you yesterday, to its conclusion. He says that you now have in your possession, you say legally, twenty thousand dollars in cash, and you offer it to me as retainer for the job you want me to do. Is that correct?”

“Yes, if Mr. Goodwin does the work.”

“He would do his share, directed by me except when urgency forbids. The money is in that parcel? May I see it?”

She got up and handed it to him and returned to the chair. He removed the rubber bands and wrapping and took a look at each batch, all twenty of them, stacking them neatly on his desk. He turned to me. “I see no indication of source. Did you?”

I said no.

He turned to her. “Did Miss Lily Rowan supply it?”

“Of course not!”

“But of course someone did. In view of what you told Mr. Goodwin yesterday, I would have to know the source of this money. Where and how you did get it.”

Her lips were tight. She opened them to say, “I don’t see why you have to know that. There’s nothing wrong with the way I got it. It’s mine. If I went to a store to buy something and gave them one of those bills they wouldn’t ask me where I got it.”

He shook his head. “Not a parallel, Miss Denovo. Yesterday you told Mr. Goodwin that two thousand dollars in the bank was all you had, and you rejected his suggestion that you ask Miss Rowan to help you.” He tapped the desk. “This is ten times two thousand. If it was a loan or a gift I would have to know from whom. If you sold something I would have to know what you sold and to whom. You may not know, at your age, that that is merely reasonable prudence. To accept a substantial retainer for a difficult and complicated operation without assurance of its legitimacy would be asinine, and if you won’t tell me where you got this money I won’t take it. If you do tell me it will have to be verified, with proper discretion, but to my satisfaction.”

She was frowning again, not at him, at me, but it wasn’t really for me; it was for the problem she had been handed. But when she spoke it was to me and for me, a question: “Is he right, Mr. Goodwin? Or is he just shutting the door, as you did?”

“No,” I said, “I’m afraid he’s right. As he said, just reasonable prudence. And after all, if it’s yours legally, as you told me, and if there’s nothing wrong with the way you got it, as you told him, why not spill it? It can’t be a deeper secret than the one we already know.”

She looked at Wolfe and back at me. “I could tell you ,” she said.

“Okay, tell me, and we’ll pretend he’s not here.”

“I guess I was being silly.” Her eyes were meeting mine. “After what you already know, you might as well know this too. That money came from my father. That and a lot more.”

Both of my brows went up. “That makes a liar of you yesterday. Yesterday you had never had your father and didn’t know who or what he was, and the two thousand—”

“I know. That was true, I never had a father. This is what happened. When my mother died I came to New York, of course, but I had to go back for graduation, and anyway Mr. Thorne had her instructions, about cremation, and that there was to be no funeral, and he attended to all the... the details. Then when I came to New York after the graduation he came—”

“Mr. Thorne?”

“Yes. He came—”

“Who is he?”

“He’s the television producer my mother worked for. He came to see me, to the apartment, and he brought things — papers and bills and letters and other things from my mother’s desk in her room at the office. And a box, a locked metal box with a label glued on it that said Property of Amy Denovo. And a key with a tag that said Key to Amy Denovo’s box. It had been—”

“Was your mother’s name Amy?”

“No, her name was Elinor. The key had been in a locked drawer in her desk. The box had been in the office safe. It had been there for years — at least fifteen years, Mr. Thorne said. It’s about this long.” She held her open hands about sixteen inches apart. “I waited until he had gone to open it, and I was glad I did. There were just two things in it: money, hundred-dollar bills — the box was more than half full — and a sealed envelope with my name on it. I opened the envelope and it was a letter from my mother, not a long one, just one page. You want to know what it said?”

“I sure do. Have you got it?”

“Not here, it’s at home, but I know it by heart. It’s on her personal letterhead. It isn’t dated. It says: Dear Amy, This money is from your father. I have not seen him or heard from him since four months before you were born but two weeks after you were born I received a bank check for one thousand dollars in the mail, and I have received one every month since then, and it now amounts to exactly one hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know what it will be when you read this. I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it. I want nothing from your father. You are my daughter, and I can feed you and clothe you and give you a place to live, and I will. And see that you are properly educated. But this money came from your father, so it belongs to you, and here it is. I could put it in a bank to draw interest, but there would be taxes to pay and records of it, so I do it this way. Your mother. And below Your mother she signed her name, Elinor Denovo — only I don’t think that was her name. And it must have kept coming right up to the time she died, because it’s two hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars. Of course I can’t put it in a bank or anything like that because I would have to tell them how I got it. Wouldn’t I? And I won’t.”

I looked at Wolfe. He was looking, not at her or at me, but at the stack of lettuce on his desk. Another man could have been thinking that life certainly plays cute tricks, but he was probably reflecting that that was just one-thirteenth of what a father had paid for the privilege, or something similar.

I said, to him, “So it wasn’t a loan or a gift and she didn’t sell anything, but we’ll have to concede that it’s legally in her possession. Of course the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State Income Tax Bureau would like to take a whack at it, but that’s not our lookout and what they don’t know won’t hurt her. What else shall I ask her?”

He grunted and turned to her. “Is the money still in the box?”

“Yes, all but that.” She gestured toward his desk. “The box is in my apartment — on Eighty-second Street. And the letter. But I don’t want... Mr. Goodwin mentioned the Internal Revenue Service.”

“We are not government agents, Miss Denovo, and are not obliged to disclose information received in confidence.” He swiveled his head to look at the clock. “It is ten minutes to our dinnertime. May Mr. Goodwin call on you at your apartment at ten tomorrow morning?”

“Yes. I don’t go to Miss Rowan on Saturday.”

“Then expect him around ten o’clock. He will want to see the box and its contents, and the letter, and he will want all the information you can give him. What you told him yesterday is a mere prologue.” He turned. “Archie. Give her a receipt for this money. Not as a retainer; that can wait until you have seen the box and the letter, and you will verify the handwriting of the letter. Just a receipt for the amount, her property, entrusted to me for safekeeping.”

I turned my chair, pulled the typewriter around, and opened a drawer for paper and carbon.