Rex Stout - Too Many Clients

She was impetuous, no question about that, but she was no fool, and she didn’t waste words. She didn’t bother to spell it out: and if Wolfe tried to do what she thought he had been hired to do, clamp a lid on it, she could queer it with a phone call to the DA’s office, and therefore he had to switch to her.

He leaned back and clasped his fingers at the center of his frontal mound. “Madam, you have been misinformed. Archie, that paper Mr. Aiken signed. Let her read it.”

I went and got it from the cabinet and took it to her. To read it she got glasses from her bag. She took the glasses off. “It’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“No. Read it again. Archie, the typewriter. Two carbons.”

I sat, pulled the machine around, arranged the paper with carbons, and inserted them. “Yes, sir.”

“Single-spaced, wide margins. The date. I, comma, Mrs. Thomas G. Yeager, comma, hereby engage Nero Wolfe to investigate the circumstances of the death of my late husband. The purpose of this engagement is to make sure that my husband’s murderer is identified and exposed, comma, and Wolfe is to make every effort to achieve that purpose. If in doing so a conflict arises between his obligation under this engagement and his obligation under his existing engagement with Continental Plastic Products it is understood that he will terminate his engagement with Continental Plastic Products and will adhere to this engagement with me. It is also understood that I will do nothing to interfere with Wolfe’s obligation to Continental Plastic Products without giving him notice in advance.”

He turned to her. “No retainer is necessary; I have none from Mr. Aiken. Whether I bill you or not, and for what amount, will depend. I wouldn’t expect a substantial payment from two separate clients for the same services. And I would expect none at all from you if, for instance, I found that you killed your husband yourself.”

“You wouldn’t get any. There was a time when I felt like killing him, but that was long ago when the children were young.” She took the original from me and put on her glasses to read it. “This isn’t right. When you find out who killed him you tell me and I decide what to do.”

“Nonsense. The People of the State of New York will decide what to do. In the process of identifying him to my satisfaction and yours I will inevitably get evidence, and I can’t suppress it. Archie, give her a pen.”

“I’m not going to sign it. I promised my husband I would never sign anything without showing it to him.”

A corner of Wolfe’s mouth went up — his version of a smile. He was always pleased to get support for his theory that no woman was capable of what he called rational sequence. “Then,” he asked, “shall I rewrite it, for me to sign? Committing me to my part of the arrangement?”

“No.” She handed me the papers, the one Aiken had signed and the one she hadn’t. “It doesn’t do any good to sign things. What counts is what you do, not what you sign. How much do you want as a retainer?”

He had just said he didn’t want one. Now he said. “One dollar.”

Apparently that struck her as about right. She opened her bag, put the checkfold in it, took out a purse, got a dollar bill from it, and left the chair to hand it to Wolfe. She turned to me. “Now I want to see that room.”

“Not now,” Wolfe said with emphasis. “Now I have some questions. Be seated.”

“What kind of questions?”

“I need information, all I can get, and it will take some time. Please sit down.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Many kinds. You said that you have known for years that your husband was oversexed, that he was sick, so it may be presumed that you took the trouble to inform yourself as well as you could of his efforts to allay his ailment. I want names, dates, addresses, events, particulars.”

“You won’t get them from me.” She adjusted her stole. “I quit bothering about it long ago. Once when the children were young I asked my doctor about it, if something could be done, perhaps some kind of an operation, but the way he explained it I knew my husband wouldn’t do that, and there was nothing else I could do, so what was the use? I have a friend whose husband is an alcoholic, and she has a worse—”

The doorbell rang. Dropping the papers in a drawer and stepping to the hall, I did not see another prospective client on the stoop. Inspector Cramer of Homicide West has been various things — a foe, a menace, a neutral, once or twice an ally, but never a client; and his appearance through the one-way glass, the set of his burly shoulders and the expression on his big round red face, made it plain that he hadn’t come to ante a retainer. I went and slipped the chain bolt on, opened the door the two inches it permitted, and spoke through the crack.

“Greetings. I don’t open up because Mr. Wolfe has company. Will I do?”

“No. I know he has company. Mrs. Thomas G. Yeager has been here nearly half an hour. Open the door.”

“Make yourself at home. I’ll see.” I shut the door, went to the office, and told Wolfe, “The tailor. He says his man brought the suit nearly half an hour ago, and he wants to discuss it.”

He tightened his lips and scowled, at me, then at her, and back at me. Whenever an officer of the law appears on the stoop and wants in, his first impulse is to tell me to tell him he’s busy and can’t be disturbed, and all the better if it’s Inspector Cramer. But the situation was already ticklish enough. If the cops had found a trail to that house and had followed it and found Fred Durkin there, the going would be fairly tough, and making Cramer pry his way in with a warrant would only make it tougher. Also there was Mrs. Yeager. Since Cramer knew she had been here nearly half an hour, obviously they had a tail on her, and it wouldn’t hurt to know why. Wolfe turned to her.

“Inspector Cramer of the police is at the door, and he knows you’re here.”

“He does not.” She was positive. “How could he?”

“Ask him. But it may be assumed that you were followed. You are under surveillance.”

“They wouldn’t dare! Me? I don’t believe it! If they—”

The doorbell rang. Wolfe turned to me. “All right, Archie.”

At the meeting of those two, Wolfe and Cramer, naturally I am not an impartial observer. Not only am I committed and involved; there is also the basic fact that cops and private detectives are enemies and always will be. Back of the New York cop are the power and authority of eight million people; back of the private detective is nothing but the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and while that’s a fine thing to have it doesn’t win arguments. But though I am not impartial I’m an observer, and one of the privileges of my job is to be present when Cramer walks into the office and aims his sharp gray eyes at Wolfe, and Wolfe, his head cocked a little to the side, meets them. Who will land the first blow, and will it be a jab, a hook, or a swing?

On this occasion I got cheated. That first quick impact didn’t take place because Mrs. Yeager didn’t let it. As Cramer crossed the sill into the office she was there confronting him, demanding, “Am I being followed around?”

Cramer looked down at her. He was polite. “Good morning, Mrs. Yeager. I hope you haven’t been annoyed. When there’s a murderer loose we don’t like to take chances. For your protection we thought it advisable—”

“I don’t need any protection and I don’t want any!” With her head tilted back the crease between her chins wasn’t so deep. “Did you follow me here?”

“I didn’t. A man did. We—”

“Where is he? I want to see him. Bring him in here. I’m telling you and I’m going to tell him, I will not be followed around. Protect me?” She snorted. “You didn’t protect my husband. He gets shot on the street and put in a hole and you didn’t even find him. A boy had to find him. Where’s this man?”