Rex Stout: Might as Well Be Dead

“That isn’t true.” Fanny Irwin had to squeeze it out.

“If you mean she didn’t tell him that, I admit I can’t prove it, since Johnny Keems and Ella Reyes are both dead. If you mean that didn’t happen, I don’t believe you. She may even have also told him that she heard the phone conversation on an extension, and that Mr. Degan told you to withdraw from the theater party that evening, giving a headache as an excuse, and to suggest that Mrs. Molloy be invited in your stead.”

“You know what you’re saying,” Jerome Arkoff said darkly.

“I do,” Wolfe told Mrs. Irwin, not him. “I am charging you with complicity in the murder of Michael Molloy, and, by extension, of Johnny Keems and Ella Reyes and Delia Brandt. With that information from your maid, Keems, ignoring the instructions I had given him, sought out Degan. Degan, seeing that he was in great and imminent peril, acted promptly and effectively. On some pretext, probably of taking Keems to interview some other person, he had Keems wait for him at a place not frequented at that time of night while he went for his car; and instead of going for his car he stole one, drove it to the appointed place, and killed Keems with it.”

Wolfe’s head moved. “Do you wish to challenge that detail, Mr. Degan? Have you an alibi for that night?”

“I’m listening,” Degan said, louder than necessary. “And don’t forget others are listening too.”

“I won’t.” Wolfe returned to Fanny Irwin. “But Degan had learned from Keems the source of his information, and Ella Reyes was almost as great a menace as Keems had been. Whether he communicated with her directly or through you, I don’t know. He arranged to meet her, and killed her, and put the body where it was not found until somewhat later, taking her handbag to delay identification. By then he was no better than a maniac, and when, two or three days afterward, he was confronted with still another threat, this time from Delia Brandt, qualms, either of conscience or of trepidation, bothered him not at all. But I wonder about you. You felt no qualms? You feel none?”

“Don’t say anything,” her husband told her. He had her hand.

“I’m not sure that’s good advice,” Wolfe said. “There are certainly people present who would question it. If you’ll turn your head, madam, to your right and rear, there by the big globe — the man on the left and the woman beside him — they are the parents of Peter Hays, who has been convicted of a murder you helped to commit. The other man is also deeply interested; he is Peter Hays’s counsel. Now if you’ll turn your head the other way. The man on the couch, who lost control of himself a few minutes ago, is — or was — the fiancé of Delia Brandt. They were to be married — tomorrow, Mr. Lesser?”

No reply.

Wolfe didn’t press him. “And standing at the door is Archie Goodwin, and on Mr. Degan’s left is Saul Panzer. They were friends and colleagues of Johnny Keems — and I myself knew Keems for some years and had esteem for him. I’m sorry I can’t present to you any of the friends or family of Ella Reyes; you knew her better than anyone else here.”

“What the hell good does this do?” Jerome Arkoff demanded.

Wolfe ignored it. “The point is this, Mrs. Irwin. Mr. Degan is done for. I have this sheaf of papers in my drawer. The key for the safe-deposit box which he took from Molloy’s body will almost certainly be found in Degan’s possession. There are other items — for example, when Mr. Goodwin left this house last Tuesday a man followed him, and that man will be found and will tell who engaged him. I’ll stake my reputation that it was Degan. Now that we know that Degan killed those four people, the evidence will pile up. Fingerprints in Delia Brandt’s apartment, his movements Wednesday night and Thursday night and Sunday night, an examination of the books of his organization; it will be overwhelming.”

“What do you want of me?” she asked. They were her first words since he had called her a murderer.

“I want you to consider your position. Your husband advises you to say nothing, but he should consider it too. You are clearly open to a charge as accessory to murder. If you think you must not admit that Degan phoned you on January third, and suggested that you withdraw from the theater party and that Mrs. Molloy be asked in your stead, you are wrong. Such an admission would injure you only if it carried the implication that you knew why Degan wanted Mrs. Molloy away from her apartment — knew it either when he made the suggestion or afterward. And such an implication is not inherent. It is even implausible, since Degan wouldn’t want to disclose his intention to commit murder. He could have told you merely that he wanted a private conversation with you and asked you to make an opportunity for that evening, and his suggestion of Mrs. Molloy could have been offhand. If so, it is unwise and dangerous for you to keep silent, for silence can carry implications too. If Degan merely wanted an opportunity to discuss some private matter—”

“That was it!” she said, for all to hear.

Her husband let go of her hand.

Jerome Arkoff croaked, “Don’t be a goddam fool, Tom! This is for keeps!”

Rita sang out, “Go on, Fanny! Spit it out!”

Fanny offered both hands to her husband, and he took them. She gave him her eyes too. “You know me, Tom. You know I’m yours. He just said he had to see me, he had to tell me something. He came to the apartment, but now I see, because he didn’t come until nearly ten—”

Degan went for her. Of course it was a convulsion rather than a calculated movement. It couldn’t very well have been calculated, since Saul and Purley were right there beside him, and since, even if he got his hands on her and somehow managed to finish her, it wouldn’t have helped his prospects any. It was as Wolfe had said, after killing four people he was no better than a maniac, and, hearing her blurting out her contribution to his doom, he acted like one. He never touched her. Saul and Purley had him and jerked him back, and those two together are enough for any maniac.

Irwin was on his feet. So were the Arkoffs, and so was Cramer. Albert Freyer went loping over to my desk and reached for the phone.

Wolfe was speaking. “I’m through, Mr. Cramer. Twelve minutes short of my hour.”

They didn’t need me for a minute or two. I opened the door to the hall and went upstairs to report to Mrs. Molloy. She had it coming to her if anyone did. And from her room I could chase Freyer off the phone and call Lon Cohen at the Gazette and give him some news.

A few days later Cramer dropped in at six o’clock and called me Archie when I let him in. After getting settled in the red leather chair, accepting beer, and exchanging some news and views with Wolfe, he stated, not aggressively, “The District Attorney wants to know where and how you got the key to the locker. I wouldn’t mind knowing myself.”

“I think you would,” Wolfe declared.

“Would what?”

“Would mind. It would only ruffle you to no purpose. If the District Attorney persists, and I tell him it came to me in the mail and the envelope has been destroyed, or that Archie found it on the sidewalk, what then? He has the murderer, and you delivered him. I doubt if you will persist.”

He didn’t.

The problem of the fee, which had to be settled as soon as Peter Hays had been turned loose, was a little more complicated. Having mentioned to James R. Herold, while under a strain, the sum of fifty thousand dollars, Wolfe wanted to stick to it, but fifty grand and expenses seemed pretty steep for a week’s work, and besides, he was already in the 80 % bracket. He solved it very neatly, arranging for Herold to donate a check for $16,666.67 to Johnny Keems’s widow and one for the same amount to Ella Reyes’ mother. That left $16,666.66, plus expenses, for Wolfe, and makes a monkey out of people who call him greedy, since he got only $16,666.66 instead of $16,666.67. And P.H., after he got from under, finally conceded that his father and mother were his parents, though the announcement of the wedding in the Times had it Peter Hays, and the Times is always right.