Rex Stout - Might as Well Be Dead

“No. I had no expectations whatever.”

He looked at me. “Did you?”

I shook my head. “Same here.”

“I wonder. I wonder what Wolfe expected.”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“I would like to. Is he in his office?”

I looked at my wrist. “He will be for another fifteen minutes. Lunch at one-thirty on Friday.”

“We might make it.” He returned the bundles to the box, locked it, picked it up, and headed for the door, with the New York State Tax Commission practically stepping on his heels. Parker and I followed, and waited outside while he went with an attendant and the tax man to have the box slid into its niche and locked in, and when he rejoined us we mounted together to the street floor. There the tax man parted from us. Except for interested glances from a couple of guards we drew no attention inside, but the press was on the job. As we emerged to the sidewalk a journalist blocked our path and said the public wanted to know what had been found in Molloy’s box, and when we refused to spill it he stayed right with us until we were in the taxi with the door shut.

The midtown traffic kept us from getting to the old brownstone before one-thirty, but since as far as I knew Patrick A. Degan was still a suspect I took him in along with Parker. Herding them into the office, I crossed the hall to the dining room and shut the door. Wolfe, in the big chair with arms, at the far end of the table, had just started operating on an eight-inch ring of ham and sweetbreads mousse.

“You brought visitors,” he accused me.

“Yes, sir. Parker and Degan. I know you won’t work with the feedbag on, but we found a third of a million dollars in used currency in the safe-deposit box, and Degan wants to ask you if you knew it was there. Shall they wait?”

“Have they eaten?”

“No.”

Of course that wouldn’t do. The thought of a hungry human, even a hungry murder suspect, even a hungry woman, in his house, is intolerable. So we had luncheon guests. They and I split the mousse that was waiting for me and while we finished it Fritz manufactured a celery and mushroom omelet. Wolfe tells me there was a man in Marseilles who made a better omelet than Fritz, but I don’t believe it. The guests protested that the mousse was all they wanted, but I noticed that the omelet was cleaned up, though I admit Wolfe took a portion just to taste.

Leaving the dining room, I gave Wolfe a sign, and, letting Parker conduct Degan to the office, he and I went to the kitchen, and I reported on the ceremony of opening the box. He listened with a scowl, but not for me. He hates to stand up right after a meal, and he hates to sit down in the kitchen because the stools and chairs aren’t fit to sit on — for him.

When I was through he demanded, “How sure are you that the box contained nothing but the money?”

“Dead sure. My eyes were glued to him, and they’re good eyes. Not a chance.”

“Confound it,” he muttered.

“My God,” I complained, “you’re hard to satisfy. Three hundred and twenty-seven thou—”

“But only that. It’s suggestive, of course, but that’s all. When a man is involved in a circumstance pressing enough to cause his murder he must leave a relic of it somewhere, and I had hoped it was in that box. Very well. I want to sit down.”

He marched to the office, and I followed.

Parker had let Degan have the red leather chair, and Degan had lit a cigar, so Wolfe’s nose twitched as he got his bulk adjusted in his chair.

“You gentlemen doubtless have your engagements,” he said, “so I apologize for keeping you so long, but I never discuss business at the table. Mr. Goodwin has told me what you found in that box. A substantial nest egg. You have a question for me, Mr. Degan?”

“A couple,” Degan said, “but first I must thank you for the lunch. The best omelet I ever ate!”

“I’ll tell Mr. Brenner. It will please him. And the question?”

“Well.” He blew smoke, straight at his host. “Partly it’s just plain curiosity. Were you expecting to find a large sum of money in the box?”

“No. I had no specific expectation. I was hoping to find something that would forward the job I’m on, as I told you yesterday, but I had no idea what it might be.”

“Okay.” Degan gestured with the cigar. “I’m not a suspicious man, Mr. Wolfe, anyone who knows me will tell you that, but now I’ve got this responsibility. The thought would have occurred to anybody, finding that fortune in that box, what if you knew it was there or thought it was? And now that it’s been found, what if you are figuring that a sizable share of it will be used to pay you for this job you’re doing?”

Wolfe grunted. “Surely that’s a question for me to ask, not answer. What if I am?”

“Then you are.”

“I haven’t said so. But what if I am?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.” Degan took a puff, and this time blew it at Parker. “Frankly, I’m sorry I agreed to this. I did it for a friend who has had a tough break, Selma Molloy, and I wish I hadn’t. I’m on a spot. I know she’s all for the job you’re doing, trying to find grounds for a new trial for Peter Hays, and I am too, personally, so you might think I’d be willing to commit the estate to pay for your services and expenses, but the hell of it is that she says she won’t take the estate or any part of it. That didn’t matter when there were no visible assets to speak of, but now it does. It will go to someone eventually, relatives always turn up when there’s a pile in it, and what will they say if I’ve paid you some of it? You see my problem.” He took a puff.

“I do indeed.” Wolfe’s lips were slightly twisted — one of his smiles. “But you asked the wrong question. Instead of asking what if I am you should have asked if I am. The answer is no. I shall not demand, or accept if offered, anything from that trove.”

“You won’t? You mean that?”

“I do.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?”

“I have said so.” Wolfe’s lips straightened. “And now that I have answered your questions, I beg you to reciprocate. You knew Mr. Molloy for some years. Have you any knowledge of the source of that money?”

“No. I was absolutely amazed when I saw it.”

“Please bear with me. I don’t challenge you, I’m merely trying to stimulate you. You were intimate with him?”

“Intimate? I wouldn’t say intimate. He was one of my friends, and I did a little business with him from time to time.”

“What kind of business?”

“I bought advice from him now and then.” Degan reached to break cigar ash into the tray. “In connection with investments of my organization. He was an expert on certain areas of the real-estate market.”

“But you didn’t pay him enough to supply an appreciable fraction of that fortune in the box.”

“My God, no. On an average, maybe two or three thousand a year.”

“Was that the main source of Molloy’s income, supplying investment advice regarding real estate?”

“I couldn’t say. It may have been, but he did some brokerage and I think he did a little operating on his own. I never heard him say much about his affairs. He had a closed mouth.”

Wolfe cocked his head. “I appeal to you, Mr. Degan. You had a problem and I relieved you of it. Now I have one. I want to know where that money came from. Surely, in your long association with Mr. Molloy, both business and social, he must have said or done something that would furnish a hint of activities which netted him a third of a million dollars. Surely he did, and if it meant nothing to you at the time, it might now if you recall it. I ask you to make the effort. If, as you said, you wish me success in my efforts on behalf of Mrs. Molloy, I think my request is justified. Don’t you agree?”