Рекс Стаут: Death of a Doxy

“I didn’t tell my husband.”

“You must have, because if—”

I cut in. “It’s no good, Mrs. Fleming. That’s nailed down. Your husband got that letter Saturday morning. At one o’clock he phoned Miss Jaquette at her hotel. At half past two he came in person. I was there with Miss Jaquette. He told us he hadn’t brought the five thousand dollars he had screwed out of X because the bank wasn’t open. He said he would bring it Monday. Today. What time did he get home Saturday night?”

No answer. She was staring at me.

“I know he got home late, because at half past one he was behind the wall in Central Park with either a rifle or a revolver, shooting at Miss Jaquette across the street when we got out of a taxicab. I brought Miss Jaquette home with me, here, so we don’t know if he has tried to get in touch with her today, and we don’t care. The point is, you did tell him X’s name, and he did blackmail X, and Isabel knew it. That’s settled.”

She was clawing, but not at me. Her hands were resting on her knees, with the fingers curled, and she was scraping at her palms with her nails. “I can’t believe it,” she said, so low that I barely heard. She said louder, “I can’t believe it.”

“That’s hard,” I said, “but there’s harder. This isn’t nailed down, but it can be. As it stands now, it’s what Isabel told Miss Jaquette. She not only told her about the blackmailing, she also told her that she was going to tell your husband that she had decided to tell you about it. When I first heard that, from Miss Jaquette, I wondered why the police were holding Orrie Cather instead of your husband, but then Miss Jaquette told me she hadn’t told the police about the blackmailing at all. You can ask her why; I think it was because she didn’t realize what it might mean. The police would have realized it. If she had told them about the blackmailing, all that Isabel told her, your husband would now be in jail, either along with Orrie Cather or instead of him, as a murder suspect. And when we tell them about his coming to see Miss Jaquette Saturday afternoon, and his trying to kill her that night, that will settle that. They’ll get the evidence, for instance his movements the morning Isabel was killed, and he’ll be booked for murder, and tried, and probably convicted. I told you on the phone that I have found the right man, and I have. Barry Fleming.”

She had stopped the clawing and made fists, and had nodded three times as I talked — little involuntary nods, without knowing she was doing it, like the shake of her head when I told her that Orrie Cather might have been the one who was paying the rent. Now she whispered to herself, “That’s why.”

I didn’t ask her why what, because I wasn’t after evidence. You want evidence in order to prove something to the District Attorney or a judge or a jury, and that wasn’t the program. Her “why” was probably something, or things, he had said or done — for instance, where he had said he had been, but hadn’t, the morning Isabel was killed. Whatever it was, it made it a lot simpler than I had thought it would be. I had expected her to throw at least three fits, especially after finding the toy in her bag, and there she was whispering to herself.

Julie said, “You don’t have to club her.”

That was unnecessary, so I ignored it. What the hell, she had brought a gun, even if she had had not idea what for. Probably to mow me down if I called Isabel a doxy. “You may wonder,” I told Stella, “why we wanted to discuss it with you. Since it’s practically certain that he killed Isabel, why didn’t we just tell the police? Of course we’ll have to, but I haven’t forgotten what you told me that day, that your sister’s reputation was the most important thing in the world. I know nothing about your relations with your husband, but I thought it was possible you could do something. You might persuade him to go to the police and admit he killed her, and give an entirely different reason, some reason that would leave out the blackmailing and X and everything you don’t want to come out. I don’t know if that’s possible, but I thought you ought to have the chance. We can’t wait long, not more than a day or two. Say Wednesday morning.”

“This is Monday,” she said. She was getting her voice back.

“Right.”

“I want that letter.”

It had dropped to the floor when she started the clawing, and I had picked it up and put it on my desk. “It’s just a typewritten copy,” I said.

“I want it.”

I got it, folded it, and handed it to her. She said, “The gun.”

“When you leave. Whose is it, yours or your husband’s?”

“It’s his. He has medals for shooting.” She put the letter in her bag, looked at Julie, and said, “You . It was people like you.”

“Nuts,” Julie said. “Anybody can say that to anybody. You mean I was bad for Isabel. I was a lot better for her than you were. I really loved her, but what about you? From what she told me, what—”

That did it. I had relaxed some, and she was so damned sudden. Her lunge at Julie was so fast that she was on her before I moved, and again it wasn’t my fault that Julie didn’t get hurt, at least some good scratches. Julie jerked her knees up, and with her feet off the floor the impact toppled her and the chair backward. Stella would have been on top, but by that time I was there and had her shoulders from behind. I pulled her off and up and pinned her arms, but she said, “I’m all right,” and she was. The fit had gone as fast as it came. Julie scrambled up, took a swipe at her hair, and said, “You can club her, for all I care.”

Wolfe’s voice came, his coldest voice. “Mrs. Fleming.”

We all turned. He was in the doorway. “Mr. Goodwin was too generous,” he said, “giving you until Wednesday morning. Tomorrow morning at the latest. Get her out, Archie.” He headed for his desk.

Stella’s eyes followed him to his chair, then she looked around, evidently for her bag. I picked it up from where she had dropped it, put the gun in it, said, “I’ll give it to you at the door,” and moved, and she came.

At four o’clock Julie was in a chair by a window in the South Room, deeply interested, if you go by appearances, in a magazine, and I was standing in the doorway. We weren’t speaking. I had asked her if I should ring the Ten Little Indians to tell them she wouldn’t come this evening, or would she rather do it herself, and she had said neither one, she was going, and I had said she wasn’t. The conversation had got very outspoken. At one point she had asked me to tell her Saul Panzer’s number so she could call him and ask him to come and take her, since I didn’t want to expose myself. At another point I said that I doubted if more than half of the customers would leave when they learned that she wouldn’t appear. At still another she asked if I actually meant that she was being held there by force, against her will, and I said yes. By four o’clock it became apparent that we weren’t going to be speaking.

Then the sound came of the elevator groaning its way up, and she raised her head to listen. When the groaning stopped and the sound came of the door opening above, she tossed the magazine on the table, got up, and walked. As she approached the doorway I politely moved aside, and she passed through, went to the stairs, and started up. She was either going to appeal to the owner of the house or help him with the orchids, and as far as I was concerned it didn’t matter which. I went down the two flights to the office, called the Ten Little Indians, and said that Miss Jaquette had a cold and wouldn’t be able to make it. I didn’t say where she was because they might send someone with flowers and she didn’t need any up there.