Rex Stout: The Rodeo Murder

“I’d like to be sure about this, Cal. Go back to it, it was only yesterday. You and Laura had breakfast in the coffee shop?”

“Yes.”

“Then you went into the lobby together. If you didn’t leave her to buy cigarettes, maybe it was to buy a paper. The newsstand is—”

“Wait a minute. We didn’t go into the lobby. We left the coffee shop by the street door. We went down to the Garden to look at some things.”

“Then it might have been when you came back. You went into the lobby then.”

“We didn’t come back. When we left the Garden we went up to that Miss Rowan’s. I guess you might tell me why this is so particular. What does Mel say we talked about?”

“You’ll know pretty soon. I had to be sure—”

There was a knock at the door, and he lost no time getting to it. It was Laura. She was running true to form. We had agreed on fifteen minutes, and it had been only ten. The reunion was mighty dramatic. Cal said, “Well, hello.” Laura said, “Hello, Cal.” He stood aside so she wouldn’t have to brush against him as she entered. I arose and said, “You fudged a little but I expected you to.” Cal shut the door and came and said, “Gosh, you look like you got throwed by a camel.”

I took command. “Look,” I told them, “when I leave you’ll have all the time there is, but now I’ve got some talking to do and you can listen. Sit down.”

“You’ve already talked,” Laura said. “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing yet but I’m going to. If you don’t want to listen I know who will — Inspector Cramer if I phone him and say I’m ready to unload. Sit down!”

Laura sat in the other chair. Cal sat on the edge of the bed. “I guess you got the drop on us, Archie,” he said. “I hope you don’t feel as mean as you sound.”

“I don’t feel mean at all.” I sat. “I’m going to tell you a love story. I take valuable time to tell it because if I don’t God only knows what Laura will be up to next. Yesterday she told you a colossal lie. Today she told me she killed Wade Eisler. Then she — shut up, both of you! Then she pointed a loaded gun at my back and would have plugged me if she hadn’t been interrupted. Then she told another lie, trying to frame Mel Fox for the murder. That’s—”

“No!” Laura cried. “That was the truth!”

“Nuts. You and Cal didn’t go to the lobby after breakfast. You went to the Garden and from there to Miss Rowan’s. You didn’t tell Mel Fox what you said you did. You were framing him, or trying to.”

“You’re talking pretty fast,” Cal said. “Maybe you’d better slow down and back it up a little. If you can. What was the lie she told me yesterday?”

“That she had gone to Eisler’s apartment Sunday night. She hadn’t. She has never been there. It was Nan Karlin that Eisler took there Sunday night, and Nan told Laura about it when she got back to the hotel. Laura told you she had been there for two reasons: she didn’t want to admit she had been careless about a horse and got her ear bruised, and the real reason, she hoped it would make you realize it was time to break out the bridle. All for love. You are her dream man. She wants to hook you. She wants you to take her for better or for worse, and she has done her damnedest to make it worse.”

“I didn’t say that!” Laura cried.

“Not in those words. Was that why you told him that lie or wasn’t it? Try telling the truth once.”

“All right, it was!”

Cal stood up. “You might go and leave us alone awhile. You can come back.”

“This is a respectable hotel. A gentleman isn’t supposed to be in his room alone with a lady. I’ll go pretty soon, after I fill in a little. Sit down. She came today and told me she killed Eisler because she thought you had — she still thinks so — and it was her fault and she wanted to take the rap. When I showed her that wouldn’t work she took a gun from her bag — she had thoughtfully brought it along — when my back was turned, and got set to let me have it, the idea being that I was the only one who knew you had a motive. She can tell you why that didn’t work either. Then—”

“She wouldn’t of shot you,” Cal said.

“The hell she wouldn’t. Then Mel and Nan and Roger came, and she got another idea. She announced that she had told Mel about Nan going to Eisler’s place Sunday night, the idea being to give Mel a motive for killing Eisler. She said she told him yesterday morning when you and she went to the lobby after breakfast and you went to buy cigarettes. I have now stepped on that one.” I turned to Laura. “You’d better see Mel and tell him. Tell him you had a fit.”

I returned to Cal. “Of course that’s fairly thick, trying to dump a murder on a guy, but after all, she would have dumped it on herself if she could. She tried that first, so I admit I should make allowances. I’m telling you all this for three reasons: first, so you’ll know what she’s capable of and you’ll head her off. No one else can. If she keeps on having ideas there’ll be hell to pay and you’ll probably do the paying. Second, I want you both to realize that whoever killed Eisler is going to get tagged, and the sooner the better. It’s one of six people: Nan Karlin, Anna Casado, Harvey Greve, Mel Fox, and Roger Dunning and his wife. If you know of any reason, anything at all, why one of them might have wanted Eisler dead, I expect you to tell me and tell me now.”

“You say Laura still thinks I killed him,” Cal said.

“She may be losing her grip on that. After the way her other ideas have panned out she must be shaky on that one.” I looked at her. “Make it hypothetical, Laura. If Cal didn’t, who did?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about Harvey Greve? He’s a friend of mine, but I’ll overlook that if he’s it. Could he have had a motive?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about Roger Dunning? Did Eisler make passes at his wife?”

“If he did I never saw him. Neither did anybody else. She’s not — well, you saw her — why would he? With all the girls to paw at. She must be nearly fifty.”

Ellen Dunning probably wasn’t a day over forty, but I admit she was a little faded. I turned to Cal. “Your turn. If you didn’t kill him who did?”

He shook his head. “You got me. Does it have to be one of them six?”

“Yes.”

“Then I pass. I just couldn’t guess.”

“It will take more than a guess. My third reason for taking up your time, not to mention mine: I wanted to have another look at you and listen to you some more. You’re the only one with a known motive, and I’m the one that knows it. Nero Wolfe has bought my conclusion that you’re out, and I haven’t told the cops, and if I’m wrong I’m sunk. Besides, Laura would have the laugh on me, and I’d hate that. Did you kill him?”

“I’ll tell you, Archie.” He was actually grinning at me, and there was nothing but me between him and a murder trial. “I wouldn’t want her to have the laugh on me, either. And she won’t.”

“Okay,” I got up. “For God’s sake keep an eye on her. Do you know Harvey’s room number?”

“Sure. He’s down the hall. Five-thirty-one.”

I went.

Knocking on the door of Room 531, first normal and then loud, got no result. I intended to see Harvey. He might be down in the lobby, and if he wasn’t I would try the Garden. There was no hurry about getting back to the office, since it was only four-thirty and Wolfe wouldn’t be down from the plant rooms until six. Taking the elevator down, I found that there were more people in the lobby than when I came. Moving around, I didn’t see Harvey, but I saw a man I knew, standing over in a corner chinning with a couple of cowboys. It was Fred Durkin. Fred, a free-lance, was second-best of the three operatives whom Wolfe considers good enough to trust with errands when we need help on a job. I looked at my watch: 4:32. Nearly an hour and a half since I had left with Laura, time enough for Wolfe to get Fred on the phone, brief him, and put him to work. Had he? Of course it could be that Fred was there on a job for one of the agencies that used him, but that would have been quite a coincidence and I don’t like coincidences.