Rex Stout: The Rodeo Murder

“I’m going,” Laura said. “I’m going to — I’m going.”

“No. You’d be up to some mischief within the hour. I am going to expose a murderer, and I have accepted Mr. Goodwin’s conclusion that it will not be Mr. Barrow, and you will probably be needed. This is Mr. Fritz Brenner. Go with him.”

“But I must—”

“Confound it, will you go? Mr. Cramer would like to know why you came to see Mr. Goodwin. Do you want me to ring him and tell him?”

She went. I got her jacket from the couch and handed it to Fritz, and he convoyed her out and to the elevator. Wolfe commanded me, “Get Mr. Dunning,” and went to his desk and sat. I put the Graber and the cartridges in a drawer, looked in the book for the number of the Paragon Hotel, got at the phone, and dialed. The girl said Dunning’s room didn’t answer, and I asked her to have him paged. When he couldn’t be found I left a message, and tried Madison Square Garden, and finally got him.

Wolfe took his phone. I stayed on mine. “Mr. Dunning? This is Nero Wolfe. We met yesterday at the home of Miss Lily Rowan. Miss Rowan has hired me to investigate what she calls an abuse of her hospitality — the death by violence of one of her guests — and I would like to see you. If you will please come to my office, say at a quarter past two?”

“I can’t,” Dunning said. “Impossible. Anyway, I’ve told the police everything I know. I suppose Miss Rowan has a right to hire you if she wants to, but I don’t see why... anyhow, I can’t. It’s a nightmare, this is, a nightmare, but we’re going to have a performance tonight if I live that long.”

“Murder hatches nightmares. Did you tell the police about Miss Karlin’s visit to Mr. Eisler’s apartment Sunday night?”

Silence. Five seconds.

“Did you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That won’t do, Mr. Dunning. I can ask the police that question if I must, but I would rather not. I would prefer to discuss it with you, and with Miss Karlin and Mr. Fox. If you will please be here with them at a quarter past two? A yes or no will be sufficient. It might be unwise to discuss it on the phone.”

Another silence. Six seconds.

“I’ll be there.”

“With Miss Karlin and Mr. Fox?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll expect you.” He hung up and looked at me. “Archie. Will that woman try climbing out a window?”

“No. She’s hooked.”

“Very well.” He looked up at the wall clock. “Lunch in forty minutes. Report.”

When the company arrived I wasn’t there to let them in. They came five minutes early, at ten after two, and I was upstairs with Laura Jay. The south room is two flights up, on the same floor as my room, in the rear, above Wolfe’s room. I left the lunch table before Wolfe finished his coffee, and mounted the two flights, partly to make sure she was still there, partly to see if she had eaten anything from the tray Fritz had taken up, and partly to tell her that Nan and Mel and Roger Dunning were expected and if Wolfe wanted her to join the party later I would either come and get her or send Fritz for her. All three purposes were served. She was there, standing at a window, the sun setting fire to her honey-colored hair. There was only one Creole fritter left on the plate and no salad in the bowl. I had expected her to insist on going down with me instead of waiting for a summons, but she didn’t. Just for curiosity I asked her if she had intended to pull the trigger as soon as I hung up or wait until I turned around, and she said I ought to know she wouldn’t shoot a man in the back.

When I descended to the office they were there — Roger Dunning in the red leather chair, and Nan Karlin and Mel Fox in two of the yellow ones facing Wolfe’s desk. When I entered and circled around them I got no glances; they were too intent on Wolfe, who was speaking.

“... and the source of my information is not important. If you persist in your denial you will merely be postponing your embarrassment. The police have learned, not from me, that Eisler took a woman to his apartment Sunday night, and they are going over it for fingerprints. Almost certainly they will find some of yours, Miss Karlin, and Mr. Goodwin has told me that all of you permitted them to take samples last evening. You’re in a pickle. If you refuse to discuss it with me I advise you to tell the police about it at once, before they confront you with it.”

Nan turned her head to look at Mel, and I had her full-face. Even without her pink silk shirt and Levis and boots, in a blouse and skirt and pumps, she would have been spotted by any New Yorker as an alien. The skin of a girl’s face doesn’t get that deep tone from week ends at the beach or even a two weeks’ go-now-pay-later trip to Bermuda.

Mel Fox, meeting her look, said, “What the hell.”

Nan went back to Wolfe. “Laura told you,” she said. “Laura Jay. She’s the only one that knew about it except Roger Dunning and he didn’t.”

“He says he didn’t,” Mel said. His eyes went to Dunning. “You wouldn’t be letting out anybody’s cinch, would you, Roger?”

“Of course not,” Dunning said. It came out a little squeaky, and he cleared his throat. His narrow, bony face was just a sliver. I have noticed over and over that under strain a fat face gets fatter and a long face gets longer. He asked Wolfe, “Did I tell you?”

“No.” To Nan: “You say that Miss Jay and Mr. Dunning are the only ones who knew about it. When did you tell them?”

“Sunday night when I got back to the hotel. Laura’s room is next to mine and I went in and told her. I thought I ought to tell Roger and so did she, and when I went to my room I phoned him and he came and I told him.”

“Why him? Are you on terms of intimacy with him?”

“With him? Good lord. Him?”

“The question arises. It is conceivable that he was so provoked by the outrage that he decided to kill Eisler, moved perhaps by an unavowed passion. Is it not?”

“Look at him,” Nan said.

We did so. With no desire to slander him, it must be admitted that he didn’t look like a man apt to burn with passion, avowed or unavowed.

“I never killed a man yet,” he said. “Why Nan told me, she thought she ought to and she was absolutely right. It was partly my fault she had gone with Eisler to his apartment, I had asked the girls to let him have a little rope as long as he didn’t get too frisky, I knew they could take care of themselves, and Nan wanted to tell me that if he ever came near her again she would give him worse than a scratch, and I couldn’t blame her.”

“Why did you ask them to give him rope?”

“Well.” Dunning licked his lips. “In a way I was hogtied. If Eisler hadn’t put up the money we wouldn’t have made it to New York this year, or anyhow it wouldn’t have been easy. I didn’t know much about him when I first signed up with him except that he had the money. Anyhow he was all right except with the girls, and I didn’t know he was that kind. I knew if he didn’t pull up there might be trouble, but I figured it wouldn’t do any good to tell him so. What could I do? I couldn’t fence him out. When Nan told me about Sunday night I thought that might stop him, it might show him that a girl that can handle a bronc can handle his kind.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“No, I didn’t. I hoped I wouldn’t have to. But I decided I would keep my eyes open. Up there yesterday when I noticed he wasn’t on the terrace I looked around for him some, inside and outside. When I couldn’t find him and I saw all the girls were there I thought he had up and gone, and that suited me fine.”

“What time was that? When you looked around and couldn’t find him.”